


One Pure Thing

by James_Baelish



Category: There Will Be Blood
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Father Figures, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fatherhood, Hero Worship, Religious Conflict, Religious Content, Religious Fanaticism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:48:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 107,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23606317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/James_Baelish/pseuds/James_Baelish
Summary: Bible black.  Oil black.  With which would you prefer to taint your soul?There Will Be Bloodfrom Mary Sunday's point of view.
Relationships: Daniel Plainview/Mary Sunday, HW Plainview/Mary Sunday
Comments: 15
Kudos: 15





	1. I. The Angel of Signal Hill

**"When it comes to little girls, God the father has nothing on father the God."**  
**\--Frank Pittman**

**I. The Angel of Signal Hill**

A life full of pastoral redundancy on the family ranch was unbearable for a girl as young as Mary. Time was marked by the movements of the sun and the moon, alleviated by intervals of peaceful sleep, the time when she dreamt of life anywhere else but Little Boston. The mundane repetition drove her mad: waking before sunrise to set the table, taking special care to mutter grace before a meager breakfast to avoid a lashing, then rounding up the flock of goats with one of her older siblings – usually either one of her brothers Paul or Eli – and tending to them while they grazed in the hills until the sun slept in its horizon bed. Every day mother packed identical bundles of sliced raw potatoes, goat’s milk and cheese for them to eat while they performed their shepherding tasks. The same rocks were kicked, the same goats were petted, the same tree was sat under. Returning for supper meant only a larger portion of the same food they consumed for lunch with the exception that the potatoes were boiled this time. She had eaten so much of the same stuff that when she tried to eat more she became nauseous. It was too much banality for a bored child.

There were no real enjoyments for a child of any age, but boys were permitted more liberties than girls. They were the future pillars of the community, the workers and breadwinners, the rulers and leaders and thereby were allowed their inquisitiveness and experimentation. Not so with the girls, who were confined mostly to the household to be domesticated, preparing for feckless lives as maids and baby factories. With her dull chore of tending the flock she was one of the luckier ones whose peers envied her for this uncommonness. The way of life in the good Christian community of Little Boston was set in stone: a woman’s place was at the hearth and in the bed. Even at her tender age, Mary knew that this was repressive unfairness. On days when Paul accompanied her to the pasture some of the monotony and inequality was broken by discussion of various themes, as Paul was about the only male who did not think women were incapable of education.

Despite their identical appearance, Paul and Eli could not have been more different: the former a cynical student, the latter an obsessed evangelist. Eli’s Heaven was a righteous version of Hell while Paul’s was a quiet library. She adored Paul. Sweet as treacle, he was quixotic and carried books wherever he went. Deprived of any escape in reality, books were his sanctuary from the horrors at home, but because the Sundays were destitute, he had to borrow them from a friend or the single bookcase that acted as a library in the school. On special occasions he was lucky enough to receive them as gifts. Those that suited his tastes were received from his friends but the ones given by his parents were Christian-themed and accepted with fettered disappointment. Among his eclectic interests were literature, politics, business and an idea termed socialism rather than have more religion shoved down his throat. The topics discussed were broad and ranged from arithmetic to sociology with literature mixed in, all of which she absorbed in the earnest desire of a student. From those few decent books he acquired he read to her and taught her what he learned, even when she didn’t understand because the scope of her young mind was not yet mature enough. She _tried_ and that was the important thing, taking comfort in how Paul attributed her struggle to understand to her age rather than her sex.

Nor was time spent solely on educational purposes. After the taboo lessons, they disported in childish pursuits including hide and seek, tag, chase bevies of quail or whatever else she felt like playing or inventing. Those times were when Paul was at her mercy and he relished every minute of it as did she because it was the only time she could be herself. Often as the blistering sun reached an insufferable peak, with each lackadaisical hour they lounged on their backs beneath a gnarled tree and stared at the unrelenting clear blue Californian sky. At long lengths they canvassed their aspirations of escaping the dreary, isolated life of similitude because, according to Paul, it was not meant for them. _They_ were meant for _other_ things, _bigger_ things, _important_ things. In a place where happiness and prosperity were scarce, Mary wondered what all of those things entailed.

The only person who enjoyed this laggard existence was Eli and that was no surprise. With his devout status as a healer, he was an exalted deity to the poor lost souls populating his congregation and few men could resist being as equally worshipped as the God he claimed to serve. This never escaped Paul’s critical eye and he spoke about it frequently when alone with her.

“Karl Marx said that _‘Religion is the opium of the masses’_ ,” Paul quoted sagely. “Those people need Eli like we need to get away. We shouldn’t _judge_ them. We should _pity_ them. They have nothing else to live for. Not like we do.”

Mary considered this, ignorant as to who Marx was or what his words meant. She _did_ understand how right Paul was about the necessity of escape and that if he repeated Marx’s words then they were significant. They needed to get away because even blue skies were intolerable if it was all you ever saw.

Nightfall brought the only other difference in her life. The sky did not merely transition from blue to black, it darkened to Bible black as everyone, including her and Paul, were forced by father to pay homage to Eli’s God. Disobedience incurred the wrathful reification of that God by way of Abel Sunday’s belt or occasional bare hand. _Spare the rod and spoil the child!_ he recited the terrible mantra of parental tyrants. During the prayer before supper the young girl pantomimed with a bowed head and closed eyes, not daring to do as little as glance at Paul to check if he imitated her or if he was rebellious enough to refuse to take part in the attrition. After eating, the night’s entertainment was the usual religious scripture, read by either father or Eli, an event that appeared merely to embellish the sanctimonious stranglehold of the father/son pair rather than uplifting the kind God they allegedly spoke on behalf of.

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in any God at all because she did and she knew for certain that Paul did as well. Therefore, regardless of the Bible teaching that there were no other Gods, Mary concluded that in fact two Gods _did_ exist because the one Eli and father spoke of was different from _her_ idea of God. She refused to accept that their fearsome and condemning deity was the same as the benevolent and loving one she believed in. So she supposed that the deity father and Eli worshipped was a reflection of who they were inside themselves, or how else could they invent such a monstrosity?

Midweek, Mary found Eli’s preaching particularly mind-numbing and, as she nodded conformity along with the rest of the family, she silently begged God, _her_ God, to deliver her and Paul from this righteous tyranny. It would eventually happen, she knew, because her God loved her and she trusted Him. Faith in that was what kept her alive. With a mental slap to her face, she suddenly recalled where she was and fear chased all daydreams from her as a mouse gets chased out of a scorpion’s den. If father’s God was omniscient like He was claimed to be then He would know what she was thinking and strike her dead with a lightning bolt.

Whether or not Paul mimicked the pious gestures was answered the next night when father unexpectedly stopped reading mid-passage and attacked his son in a tornado of rage, spit and Scripture. A horrified Mary watched as Paul was strangulated and slapped hard across the face, wanting desperately to rush to his aid or to at least kick the passive Eli who watched with a smug smile. Mother ushered her and older sister Ruth from the room but Mary could not prevent from watching the ghastly sight from over her shoulder, even after mother advised not to involve herself in men’s business. Torn between the desire to leap between Paul and father and a need to flee for her own self-preservation, she followed mother’s orders, an anxious rush of adrenaline making her body shudder with upset.

The girls were promptly directed to bed where Mary enumerated her routine bedtime prayers with diligence loud enough to drown out the yelling and sound of flesh pummeling flesh from the other room. When finished, she slipped into bed and waited for mother to exit the room before cracking open her eyes and listening intently. The first terrible moments of the assault were finished and all there was to hear now were angry, muffled voices, indicating that at least the violence had stopped. She prayed willfully that Paul was safe then again pled for an angel to defend them from father’s heavy hand and quick temper.

She expected to find that angel when she was roused later in the night. Alas, the lambent radiance that met her eyes emanated not from a being forged out of fire and light but from the flame of a candle clutched in Paul’s wobbly hand. Alarmed by the sight of his battered and puffy face, she gasped and sat bolt straight as if from a nightmare, immediately silenced by his hand over her mouth.

“I have to leave now,” he told her quietly.

Brushing his hand away, she was overwrought by heartache.

“I don’t _want_ you to go!” she whimpered, tears flowing down her freckled cheeks.

“But I _must_ , Mary! You _have_ to keep this secret. Do I have your word?”

“ _I don’t_ want _you to go!_ ”

“Shh!”

“I want to go _with_ you then!”

“You can’t! You’re too young to take this journey with me. But I know what you want. Give me time and you will have it, I promise. You _will_ have a better life and everything _will_ be fine.”

“Not without _you!_ ”

Frustrated by her stubbornness but in clear understanding of it, he asked, “If I tell you where I’m going would it make you feel better? Then would you swear not to tell?”

She hesitated for a moment then nodded vigorously, her heart a wild animal pounding at her rib cage and tears streaming in rivers down her face.

“Swear it, Mary, I mean it.”

“I swear I won’t tell.”

Her unsteady voice threatened to falter and break with sobs.

“I’m going to get someone to come and help you. Someone who will make things better.”

Glitter of fresh hope brimmed in her wet eyes.

“You’re going to get _my angel?!_ ” she inquired joyfully, the volume of her voice louder than intended.

“Shh!” Paul lowered his tone to a whisper softer than before when Ruth stirred in the bed beside Mary’s. He waited for her to settle before continuing, “Yes, I’m going to get an angel. I heard there was one in Signal Hill and I have to go there to find him. When he comes he will take away all the bad things. But I must leave before he escapes to a place I can’t reach.”

Mary was speechless. Churning with mixed emotions, her thoughts jumbled. Unexpectedly, she threw her arms around Paul, locking him in a secure embrace.

“Go then!” she whispered, choking with urgency. “Hurry! Go and bring my angel back with you! Then everything will change for the better and we can be happy!”

Her big brother smiled sweetly at her despite the soreness of his swollen face, tucked her back into bed, then kissed her forehead with the solemn dual responsibility of a protective older sibling and devoted shepherd caring for a member of his flock. The flame of the candle was snuffed and Mary was blinded again by darkness. But for the first time in her life, she finally saw the light of the Promised Land, far away at the edge of the gloom.

Paul’s whereabouts went unnoticed until the day after when mother asked about him during breakfast. Nobody else but Mary knew. Her large brown eyes locked to the bare floor with tongue stationary, as it was better to stay quiet and avoid trouble, even in small amount. Besides: she _promised_. By nightfall when the family still heard nothing from Paul, a unanimous assumption was reached that he ran off because of father’s brutal attack the night previous. Who was to say that they were wrong? Little Mary didn’t know for certain either but she placed no blame if he did.

Rampant hope made things brighter and tolerable for the first week but after that, worry set in. How long did it take to travel to Signal Hill? Or to have a letter couriered from there? Caustic days inched by and news from Paul never arrived and his delinquency harrowed her. He neither returned nor sent a covert message to her while she worked in the hills. First her anticipation dulled to disappointment which subsequently turned into a cutting melancholy, for it was assured that Paul betrayed her and left his baby sister behind to deal with the sanctimonious Sunday men on her own. It _had_ to be by now. Right? A part of her refused to wholly believe that in spite of the mounting proof of its truth, marked by lapsed time. Something in her heart, perhaps fierce sibling devotion, was convinced that Paul would do no such thing to her. He would _not_ leave her without relief from the promised angel forthcoming, not if he gave her his word.

 _Then_ where _is my angel? Where is_ Paul _?_ she wondered on a daily basis.

Day in, day out she trooped onward, doing her best to keep Paul’s locality _sub rosa_ , crying until her eyes ached far into the nights. Out on the pasture in particular was where he was most missed. Tending the flock had never been fun with Eli but it was exacerbated by her secret. He looked at her as if he suspected that she had a secret vaulted away. She was afraid of him, but promise of her angel’s eminent arrival bolstered her spirit; determined to stay unbroken and not give him power over her. Thus, she cloaked the fear with defiant indifference toward his nearness and Paul’s non-attendance. Every day, every hour that crawled by while she was alone with him in the remote pasture was stressed and white-knuckled. The second brother made it a wretched chore, always inculcating her to learn a new Bible verse every day then demanding that she recite it to him the next day. Worse, he wanted her to practice the given passage all day so that it was committed to her memory like intrinsic nature.

Life without Paul magnified boredom into a worse malaise than it ever had been and she longed for his return. Eli himself was too intolerable to bear alone with the addition of father. She and Paul loved the Lord, the one _they_ knew who existed in their hearts, not the same one Eli promoted in such a feverish way. Paul and Mary had practical ideals: the last thing either of them wanted was to be morally raped by someone else’s distortion of God. Already devoted faithfully in God, it was unnecessary to coerce them to do extravagant feats like memorizing the Bible. Paul said that their amount of faith was enough and that as wonderful as The Word was, there was more in life, things beyond religion and God. Mary believed him entirely.

Hope was dashed away forever after three weeks passed and still nothing out of the ordinary happened. Not a single visitor had sojourned to the ranch in more than a month and every day it appeared less likely that any would. Mary surrendered defeat, contemplating that since Paul would not abandon his sister in such a dire circumstance then something unfortunate happened to delay him. A raging, uncontrollable wildfire of discontent and worry burnt her. Maybe he was detained by injury or worse and never reached her angel in time. Too many days had passed without word from him and thinking of terrible possibilities was now a necessity to brace for the worst outcome.

Each day the sun sank in its horizon bed and her confidence went with it. At night she cursed both God and Paul for leaving her alone. An unknown horror happened to her beloved brother whose only sin was his want of improvement in their quality of life. As she wept for her lost brother and his desertion of her, whether it was intentional or not, she professed an oath that she would never let faith enter her heart again. And at sunrise there it was, accumulated inside her overnight through dreams and she was back to square one, squashing the hope to avoid future disappointment. Trapped with nowhere else to go, she was an animal stuck in tar with no way out. She wanted to run, to escape into the hills and the desert like Paul had and to never look back. Whatever was out there beyond the hills and wild grass had to be better than what she had at home. It just _had_ to be.

Frustrated and at her wits end, the thought lingered in torment: _This is it for me! I will_ never _be free!_

The dreary monotony trudged forward, a slug that carried on its back the only new event that transpired: an earthquake during the fifth week of Paul’s hiatus. At mid-day while she and Eli watched the flock, the Earth’s hungry underground stomach rumbled beneath their feet. The young kid she’d been romping with bleated as she clung to its neck with fear, begging for Eli to help her, her dread of him temporarily superseded by her need for comfort. But the self-professed man of God cowered beneath the tree with a confused and equally petrified countenance, frozen as if encased in ice. Finished as swiftly as it began, the seismic activity’s brevity was no compensation for how terrifying the ordeal had been.

A mild earthquake, it left only minor damage to the goat corral and the windmill. Eli testified with vehemence that it was an omen of something unholy approaching Little Boston. Mary’s thoughts disagreed with her brother as they often did. To her, it was a herald for the wicked that something almighty was coming to cleanse the impurities away. Hope was refreshed: it was her angel, she just _knew_ it.

Six full weeks had gone by since Paul’s departure and a few days after the earthquake the girl suffered the dreariest day of Eli’s illiberal, harried scripture lessons yet. Father must have suspected that she was a link to Paul’s disappearance and sent her to the pasture with Eli rather than with Ruth as punishment or to see if she would crack under the pressure and spill her guts to his household ally. It began to seem like the earthquake foretold nothing after all. Neither Paul nor the angel made appearances, revitalizing her despondency and sorrow. The day was waited out patiently but eagerly in expectation that she would see her brother and the Heavenly host pop up over the hills. By the time the scorching sun fell in the west and Eli decisively judged that it was time to head back home, the child’s endurance had reached its finish line. Enabled to tolerate only so much by virtue of her youth, abuse produced a person within her who was wise beyond her years. Unlike most children, she understood that she had limitations and Eli, companioned with her loss of Paul, pushed her to the brink.

Then, like a flash flood, the tedium of ranch life broke. Corraling the goats for the evening, she peered longingly at the hills where in the distance an invisible siren lured her with promises if she could just dare to place one foot in front of the other. Entranced, the first foot unconsciously moved forward but when she was about to take a second step she discovered an unbelievable miracle progressing from the evening dusk. Were they real or a mirage generated by desert and desire? She was afraid to blink, fearing that they would vanish, but after the theory was tested they were still there when her eyes opened again. Two figures, one her size and the other a tall, gangly adult, were moving closer toward the Sunday property; she instantly supposed the big one was Paul and the smaller one was her angel. _Her angel!_ At long last! Her brother was at last returned with their savior! Simmering deep in her heart, moments of doubt notwithstanding, she had always fostered the belief that the earthquake prophesied their coming! Admittedly, she was taken aback by the small stature of the long-awaited angel. Nevertheless, a child-sized angel would still wield all the power of Christ behind him to save her! As the man and angel advanced she realized that both were total strangers. In fact, the one her size wasn’t an angel at all, but a boy approximately her age.

Pulse racing madly, she raced inside and informed father of the impending company. He thanked her and strode out with long, hurried paces to greet their guests while Mary, Ruth and mother slipped around the rear to watch. She heard the man introduce himself and the little boy to father.

“My name’s Daniel Plainview. This is my son, H.W.”

Mary was stung with boundless elation. Paul sent not one angel but _two!_

Her father’s response: “Are you hunting?”

Mary saw the bulky camping gear burdening the backs of both strangers and took it as proof of their ethereal strength. How else could they carry such a hulking load through untold miles in the sweltering heat? She also noticed with a heavy, flummoxed heart that the adult favored his left leg. Angels should not have trouble walking. Should they? Did God _really_ send a lame angel and a pint-sized cherub to protect her?

“Hunting for quail,” Daniel answered with a strong, stentorian voice that carried the tincture power of a great angel, sending shivers of exhilaration down the young girl’s spine and curing her doubt. “We’re told there might be a good place to camp up near the Sunday ranch.”

Mary was robbed of her breath. He was _purposely_ looking for _her_ home!

“This is the Sunday ranch,” father notified. “You can camp here.”

There was no question that this man was Paul’s promised angel from Signal Hill, the avatar he ventured off to meet. Her brother and her God had not failed her! Her God was the greater one and she wanted to sing jubilant hosannas at the top of her lungs, if for nothing more than to irritate Eli. As the angel and the boy drew closer to the ramshackle Sunday house, she obtained a clearer view of his face. Weathered and ruggedly handsome, lantern-jawed and leonine in visage, he was a middle aged man, tall as a tree and lanky yet commanding in a seismic way that made the earth move beneath his feet. It was no wonder the earthquake preceded him, corresponding with his arrival in glorious announcement. The trio stopped a few feet from the house as they discussed provisions and the very earthquake. Mary held her breath in sheer fascination of his veritable presence, her eyes unable to tear from his imposing form.

“Now,” Daniel said, briefly removing his hat as he gathered himself in the cooling desert heat. “If we set our tent away over there, we’d be out of your way over there.”

He gestured to the spot he meant, a small plot that was a respectable distance from the house.

“That’s fine,” father replied. “Ruth, help these men and bring them some water!”

But the angel was having none of them wait on him as he called for the cherub H.W. to perform the task instead. Her spirit soared with reverence for this proud creature who came to serve but refused to _be_ served. H.W. raced off to gather the water as Mary squinted to better her view of the angel’s striking features.

Startling her from her stupor, father called her name and ordered, “Mary! Bring them some milk!”

Upset that she was expected to leave his glorious presence if for but a moment or two, Mary charged back into the house to promptly do as told. While busy readying the bottle of cold goat’s milk for the newcomers, she strained to listen to the conversation between him and father. Alas, the words were spoken in a lower tone that she could not hear well enough, all except the angel’s unmistakable demanding shout to hurry up. Whether it was directed at her or H.W. she did not know, but nonetheless it acted like the crack of a whip in getting her to obey. If he came to help her then the very least she could do was expediently provide him with fresh milk.

Flustered because she wanted to appease the Angel Plainview to the best of her ability as remittance for his services, Mary groaned when she accidentally tipped over a bottle of the milk. Retrieving a threadbare hand towel, she mopped up the lacteal mess, overhearing Daniel mention a fire.

Angels are made of fire and light! Perhaps he was issuing a subtle warning to her terrible patriarch. _Don’t ever touch Mary again or I will smite thee in a blast of heavenly fire!_ Angels had the capability, she knew. He may explain himself to father as a hunter of quail but she knew in the fiber of her being that his arrival truly signified retribution. Let them touch her now!

A second towel was needed to finish mopping the spilt milk then she placed both saturated towels into the wash basin to prevent further muddle from the dripping white mess. The task complete, she filled the rest of the bottle without spilling another drop, sealed it and trotted back outside.

Daniel was already leading his son off in the direction he’d pointed out to father and she sped after them, the glass bottle clutched tightly in her grasp. Reaching out, she handed it to them; it was H.W. who accepted it but Daniel peered at her and she froze like a frightened fawn. His eyes, small and fair with a network of crow’s feet given to him from age and long hours of squinting in the sun, possessed the steely gaze distinctive of a fierce archangel. Yet something more lay behind those disarming eyes, something beyond the power and dignity that the child could not place and it enthralled her. It was an odd, ambivalent combination of warmth and severity that created a similar strange brew within her, concurrently repelling and attracting her.

“Thank you, young lady,” he stated graciously, a merry expression on his attractive mustachioed face before looking away, never slowing his pace.

Despite the diversion of his eyes from her, she could not resist gawking at him, even as she forced herself to turn and walk away.


	2. II Faust's Cabinet

**II. Faust's Cabinet**

Sleep was hard to come by for Mary that night. Lying in bed flat on her back, she resisted temptation to spy on the newcomers through the bedroom window. Envisioning that their human disguises were shed in privacy, her eyes pored intently in their direction for want of catching them when they did. Removal of their earthly raiment would unveil gossamer robes and iridescent wings, their eyes burning with the fiery wrath of the Lord while they devised combat strategies. Faintheartedness got the better of her and she did not dare peek should they catch her, a notion that helped her defy the curiosity and remain in bed, ultimately falling into peaceful sleep for the first time in her life.

Being earliest to rise come morning was another first in a long period of time for her. Taking advantage of the opportunity, she stood at the window and longingly surveyed the Plainview encampment. The remnant of a fire was a black eye on the taupe desert floor and the steepled tent housing Daniel and his son stood tranquil. The angels Plainview were nowhere in sight, either asleep in the tent or already smartly pursuing quail while the temperatures were cool.

In search of something about the pair to occupy her mesmerized mind, she stoked her interest by thinking of their name. Plainview was a surname too simple for a grand angel. Yes, that was it! His name should have been _Grand_ view rather than _Plain_ view as it was more apt. One such as Daniel was the least plain thing in existence. Perhaps, though, it was given to him to keep him humble.

After an unusually bustling breakfast, Eli joined her in the pasture for the day. Only this time she deemed it a positive thing. He had delivered firewood and provisions to the Plainviews last night and spent a short time alone with them. It was the ideal opportunity for her to learn more about their visitors, _if_ the self-righteous preacher would co-operate. Skittish as a fawn, she approached him while he lazed beneath the tree, his shabby Bible, a family heirloom for generations before, opened in his lap as he laid the groundwork for the night’s boring sermon.

“Eli?” she addressed, her voice not enough to bring his nose out of the ancient book. “Did you talk to that man last night?”

“What man?” Eli furrowed his brow in deeper concentration, blatantly attempting to block her words from his ears.

“That man Plainview.” Mention of the name seized his devout attention. “Did you talk to him?”

“Of course I spoke with him,” Eli retorted, quietly incensed. “What makes you ask?”

“Just curious. He seems nice.”

Hardened eyes demonstrated that he thought otherwise.

“If you _like_ that sort of man,” he rejoined, his voice stilted and dismissive of her interest in the stranger. Damning hellfire lay underneath his collected deportment, generating her interest as to why he would give a negative subconscious reaction to a man he had met only a few hours before.

Treading where she knew she should not have, she announced in a casual tone: “I like him. I like him a lot.”

“You don’t _know_ him, Mary.”

“ _You_ don’t either.”

“No, but I know of men _like_ him.”

“What do you mean?”

There was no need to probe and she instantly wished she hadn’t. Eli snapped his Bible shut and glared at her with undisguised sedition.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked, forcing his patience with the looming threat of eternal damnation should his factual emotions be unleashed. “Why would a man and his son come from out of the desert to hunt quail?”

She shrugged and replied, “We have a lot of quail here.”

“But no-one has ever asked permission to camp here and hunt for them before. There is something about him that is deceptive. I fear he may have a more sinister purpose about him.”

“Maybe he’s my angel,” she gambled to say, “sent here to make things better.”

Eli’s smile was condescending.

“ _Your_ _angel?_ Don’t be stupid, Mary. You don't know him. You've never even met him.”

Testing the situation further despite knowing better, she blurted out rapidly: “He could be the father I never had.”

Set off by the remark, Eli laughed then definitively snarled:

“He wouldn't want to be your father. He wouldn't want to be _anything_ to you. _Where's_ your _real_ father, Mary? _Who_ is your real father?”

The excruciating emotional hurt that swelled inside Mary formed a very real, very vibrant physical agony. Unlike any other, this cancerous pain of second-hand rejection from someone who spoke on the behalf of another but had no right in doing so spread wide through her body. The cruelty of it surprised her even though it shouldn’t have, considering its source. There she stood, numb from the wounding, mortified and trying her best to sustain what dignity she had left. The blatant connotation was unbearable: why would anyone want to be bothered with her when she was a nobody, an inferior speck of nothingness? Under whose authority did Eli have the right to speak for a man he’d just met? How could he possibly know that Daniel would write her off as worthless? Even though she had a hunch that if the quail hunter had something to say to anyone he would say it directly to that person, it did not heal the damage.

Callous of her ache, Eli continued:

“If he was an angel don’t you think that the Lord would have notified me that He was sending one of His agents to us?” His eyes swept over the hills as if he could see through them. “I believe he may be a minion of Lucifer, come to test our faith.”

Out of revenge for what was said to her seconds ago, the impulsive babble of verbal diarrhea poured from her mouth before she mulled over the repercussions:

“Well, I _like_ him. And his son too. I want to be friends with them.”

Before she had the chance to refrain, Eli lashed out with predatory speed to take an iron-gripped hold on her upper arm, a harried expression on his face.

“If you knew what was wise you would stay far away from him,” warned the young man, his tone more acidic than before. “We don’t know what is in their hearts. He claims he belongs to the Church of the World but I fear he is Godless, that there is a hidden evil in his soul. Take heed, Mary. _‘It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.’_ ”

“You’re _hurting_ me!” she whined.

As if he just became cognizant of the harm he was inflicting, he retracted his fingers upon her. Unapologetic, he returned to his Bible and, sulking, Mary crossed to the opposite side of the pasture in retreat from her lousy brother, his unclear hatred no more logical than it had been before she had asked. Off in the distance echoed claps of gun fire and she fantasized of a rescue by Daniel who whisked her far away from the personal hell she had been innocently born into.

Via Ruth, invitation was extended for the Plainviews to join the Sundays for supper that evening. Contrary to his behavior on the initial night, Daniel voluntarily accepted the request, offering the fresh game from the day’s hunting excursion as the main course. Mary dizzied with excitement, Eli’s mean-spirited sophistry forgotten completely. The chance to experience the quail hunter for herself was finally presented; _then_ she could make a sound judgment on whether or not he was the true angel from Signal Hill.

Her seat at the table was positioned across from H.W. who sat attentively beside his father. The Plainviews had one entire side to themselves, earning the right of extra elbow room as the guests of honor, while Mary, Ruth and mother squeezed together on the other side; as usual, father was at the head with Eli at the foot. The plentiful fresh game was a welcome change from the bland meal she was so sick of forcing down but the topics at the table were of no interest to the girl: the earthquake, quail hunting, weather conditions, church. _Boring! Boring! Boring!_ The tedious repetition of the word was interrupted when H.W. struck her shin with his foot beneath the table then smiled after her attention was won. Despite the cramped quarters it _couldn’t_ have been an accident since the boy appeared equally bored. Nervous because of ever vigilant Eli’s proximity, she smiled back before a febrile blush painted her cheeks and her eyes dropped to the crude table surface again.

Supper finished and Mary was helping mother and Ruth clear the table when Daniel announced to the Sunday patriarch that he wanted to discuss something with him. Her spirit wilted, for this meant the Sunday women would be excused to allow the group of males to talk and, as expected, they were. H.W. was a child of her age and was granted the discriminate right to stay simply due to his gender. For that, she couldn’t help but to mildly loathe the boy.

 _Men’s business_. The obsolete phrase she detested. It demeaned women, plus she wanted to spend more time with Daniel, to be a part of him in any small way. What business could men have that women should not know too?

Wishing to know that very illicit thing, she trudged away against her will but lingered near the door, left ajar, to listen and reeled in disbelief at what she heard. _Daniel offered to purchase the ranch!_ As sudden as lightning, a thought struck her directly after. _Why_ would anyone, especially a man like Daniel, take such a powerful interest in a barren wasteland where grain was unable to grow? The unforeseen proposition was justified by H.W. having a supposed illness. Perhaps influenced by Eli, Mary was smart enough to decipher that there was more to the story, only she disagreed about an ulterior reason. Her waifish body trembled joyously as father paused in shocked reaction after Daniel’s sincerity was validated with a request for the fair asking price. Eli aggressed with an impudent bid for $6 an acre, catching the guest off guard. Father attempted his own calculation but was thwarted when Daniel made a solid offer of $3,700. Mary nearly fainted.

 _Nothing_ was that valuable on the destitute family goat ranch! Unless he _really_ _was_ the angel, wanting to secure a place near her. Conflict of whether or not Daniel was her heavenly guardian confused her to no end as she flipped back and forth between belief and disbelief. This time she believed. Her throat constricted at what she considered the sure-fire evidence that Daniel Plainview was the revered angel, come to liberate her from poverty and abuse.

But of course greedy Eli stonewalled the deal with a rejection of the money, hoping to squeeze out a larger profit, whipping father into a frenzy and bearing his ironhanded motives. She wished sensible Paul was around to moderate and get a fair price.

“The Lord has sent this man here, Eli!” the old man argued.

“Yes,” agreed Daniel as he looked directly and scathingly at Eli. “I believe He has.” Then turning back to father: “My offer to you is $3,700.”

The problem was Eli’s quick-sightedness matched Daniel’s. The men had seen straight through each other and did not approve of what they saw.

“What is it that brought you here, sir?” Eli contested in redoubt, voice rigid and singular in pursuit for legitimacy.

“The Good Lord’s guidance,” deflected Daniel testily.

Mary could not stifle a shaken gasp. This was as good as a confession to her prying ears. He _was_ an angel! He admitted it himself! The Good Lord’s guidance indeed! Paul _hadn’t_ left her to fend for herself after all! His promise was good and now nothing would be the same ever again!

Before her eyes the men bartered price, that devil Eli bending the gentleman’s offer into a thorny defamation regarding the _true_ reason he suspected brought Daniel to the property: oil. Tension accrued heavily among the men and it was evident that Eli had met an callous adversary in Daniel who matched him word for word in dispute. Neither one backed down from the other: two alpha males battling for the upper hand, one the lord of the land, the other the lord of enterprise. The girl gulped at the prospect this scenario implicated. One need not be of the male gender to see that if the foolish Eli continued to obstruct Daniel’s plans the older man had the faculties to plough over the younger one.

“ _Mary_!” mother called, aghast when she finally noticed her daughter eavesdropping on the lively business transaction. “Come _here!_ Get _away_ from that door! Mind your _own_ affairs, young lady!”

 _But it_ is _my affairs! It’s_ everyone’s _affairs, it affects us all, you included!_

Rather than speaking her mind, she complied.

“Yes, mother,” she mumbled, scuffling away from the bidding war about oil and church to join mother and Ruth in mending frayed clothing. Because mending clothes was _women’s_ business, she thought sullenly.

White-hot resentment nagged her even after she retired to bed an hour later, borne by desperation to overhear Eli‘s futile war with the crafty Daniel. Far more was at stake than assets of property and oil but mother did not make the connection. Mary didn’t care if Daniel was after oil or not. What mattered was that he was present and he would protect her now. Oil was secondary, only the means for him to be with her. What did fate have in store after this night? She was only allowed to wait passively to find out from the men.

God was merciful, as the wait to learn details of the transaction was not long. Over breakfast, father and Eli relayed the fine points of the deal to the Sunday women in layman’s terms that insulted their intelligence. The land now belonged to Daniel but the Sundays would continue residing on it, paying a monthly rental fee for the privilege. Complacent with his personal transaction with the newcomer, Eli forgot his raving speech that Daniel was a malefactor there to wangle the townsfolk out of their most valuable possession. Rather than condemning his intentions as unsavory, he became Daniel’s biggest proponent, sitting him on a pedestal and agreeing that he was an angel after all. If his deal with the interloper was profitable, Eli was satisfied. Increasingly, his myopic outlook on the interaction amplified her quiet loathsomeness of him.

It was the Sabbath and after breakfast the family fulfilled their obligation to attend Eli’s service at his rickety church. During the verbose sermon, Mary made a point to look for Daniel like a puppy searching for its mother but he was notably absent. The young girl sickened with disappointment. She supposed it logical that he would be too busy making business preparations but she hoped he would have made some sort of an appearance, being that he was an angel.

 _Angels don’t need to go to church!_ she reasoned. _They are already holy beings!_

Impatiently waiting out Eli’s lecture was comparable to the thumb screw torture and she fidgeted on the hard pine bench, doing her best to simultaneously relieve the bored pain in her bottom and ignore Rose Monahan, a girl one year her senior who incessantly but vainly tried to gain Eli’s attention. Too engaged by his preaching, Eli never paid her mind, and hence Mary was the unlucky recipient of a note and the expectation that it was to be handed to Eli on Rose’s behalf. Rose heckled her with questions and incessant chatter about him all the time so that the youngest Sunday went out of her way to avoid her, wondering why a girl would have a crush on that particular brother when there was another one who was a more deserving person. Paul’s intellect and authentic kindness made him an ideal interest while Eli’s perverse religious beliefs just left him ugly. Then again, Rose didn’t live with Eli to know better. When the torment of sermon and imploring was at last over she was free to do as she pleased because no work was enforced on the Sabbath, the only other good thing besides the angel Daniel that religion brought to her life.

Bolting from the church, away from her family and Rose with the reckless abandon of a young age, she ripped through the hills, searching for her new infatuation but he was nowhere to be found. Addled with disgruntlement, she headed home, seeking amusement there. Reaching the house, she believed herself alone until she collided with H.W. at the single moment she wasn’t paying attention.

“Excuse me,” she said in the demure manner mandatory of her sex.

“I came to see if you were back from church yet,” the boy explained. “Your brother can talk for a _really long time_.”

“Yes, he can.”

H.W. wandered and she fell into step alongside him if for nothing more than curiosity’s sake. A secret hope that he would lead her back to his father lurked just below her surface.

“How come _you_ weren’t in church?” she digressed.

H.W. shrugged but Mary believed he preferred to keep quiet on the subject of his own religion.

“My father would beat me if _I_ didn’t go to church,” she confided with frankness, interesting the boy greatly.

“How come?” he questioned her.

“He said that it’s for our own good. If we want to get into Heaven then we have to do whatever he says. He hits us if we don’t pray. And we always pray for _everything_.”

“You should tell someone. Maybe they can make him stop.”

“No, I would just get hit worse. Doesn’t _your_ father hit _you_ if you don’t obey him?”

“No. He’s never raised a hand to me. Ever.”

To Mary this was a foreign concept. The horrors of abuse were all she ever knew and she couldn’t conceive the idea of a child _not_ being struck by the parent.

“Doesn’t he hit you for not praying?” she prodded, hoping to find common ground in commiserated friendship.

“Nope. He doesn’t believe in that stuff. In hitting, I mean.”

“Oh.”

They marched through a group of goats and Mary looked beyond the brush at the men hard at work on the blistering plains.

“What are those men doing?” she asked, expressing scholarly interest in the business because even at her young age equal footing was an instilled necessity.

“They’re just guys that are working for us. They’re just looking around.”

But Mary was not as feeble minded as father and Eli accused her of being. Lessons from Paul taught her plenty and hardship created within her a child precocious in ways uncanny to other girls her age. Everyone insulted her intelligence for one reason or another: either she was too young or she was female. To hell with men’s business! She wanted to show this boy that she was no dummy for whatever reason he chose to discriminate.

“How much money can we make?” she questioned dreamily.

Again H.W. shrugged, feigning his own ignorance, she suspected.

“One thousand dollars?” she guessed, giving a high number on purpose to bait him into surrendering his information.

But H.W.’s father educated him well on the art of ambiguity’s tightly sealed lip, meaning Mary got nothing else out of him. The children hushed as the girl followed the boy not back to where he and Daniel were camped but instead to a derelict cottage officially off but near the Sunday property. Local legend pegged the cottage as haunted and it scared Mary when it came into her sight. More men were there and divided into two teams: one occupied with repairing the cracks and holes of the dilapidated abode, the other simultaneously bringing in amenities that provided living comforts. Mary was impressed. The industrious Plainviews wasted no time in getting things started.

Ten feet from the porch she stopped short, not because she thought she saw a ghost but because Daniel emerged from the cottage, stepping out to review the labors. A cigarette hung from his lips and when he noticed the children he plucked it from his mouth, squinted in the sun to better see them and delivered a ceremonious greeting.

“Look who’s come to say hello!” he said, gesturing at Mary. “Mary Sunday! How was your morning?”

Whereas she had not been in H.W.’s presence, Mary transformed into a taciturn lamb around her friend’s father. Intimidated by Daniel’s patrician stature, she averted her gaze and kicked the ground, the heat of a thousand suns rising up within her as she woefully expected it habitually would whenever he was near. The compelling urge to flee enveloped her but the last thing she wanted was for either Plainview to think her a coward. What father believed meant nothing. She _was_ worthy to stand among men and she would prove it to herself if nobody else.

“Fine,” she instead lied, striving to not make eye contact with the older man.

“It’s good to see that H.W. has company his own age out here.” Stepping off the porch, he ruffled the boy’s hair with paternal adoration. “He’s going to be a strong, smart man some day but having a good time with other young people is an important necessity for him now.”

The girl’s unease shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“Yes, sir,” she agreed quietly.

“A lot of work still needs to be done around here so run along, the both of you, and get out of the way.”

Reprieved, she happily romped off with H.W., conscious of Daniel’s protective gaze upon them until they disappeared through the tall grass and bushes.

“You’re going to live there?” she asked her companion.

“Yeah. But not until late tomorrow. Stuff still needs to be fixed first.”

Mary nodded, turned to relieved putty in knowing Daniel would be within sight of her bedroom window for one more night. Belief that he was posted there on exclusive, apparent watch over her provided great comfort. His vigilance appeased her with mollifying thoughts that they would be around longer, just not right outside. For a desperate little girl begging for solace it was enough.

Just before sunrise Mary again made a point to awaken before everyone else, earning private time to stand listlessly at the window and watch for signs of life at the Plainview camp. Fortune granted her the covert right. Framed by the dappled grey of morning, Daniel was seated near the fire, smoking a cigarette and sipping from a tin cup. Not expecting to see him despite her intent to do so, she staggered backwards with a gasp, stumbling over her forgotten shoes on the floor at the side of her bed.

“Mary?” Ruth called, groggy from being jarred out of sleep. “What are you doing?”

The instant the young girl heard the whooshing sigh of her sister’s sheets she retreated back to bed, pretending she had been there all along.

“Nothing,” she fibbed.

“Lying is a sin.” Ruth rose from her bed and glanced out the window, finding a glimpse of Daniel, oblivious to their spying. “Oh, I see. Looking for your boyfriend.”

Mary’s heart stung as she took defense: “I don’t _have_ a boyfriend!”

Her face flushed robin’s breast scarlet, accenting her flaxen hair when she at first mistakenly thought her sister was referencing Daniel. A second later she realized Ruth meant H.W. but her brief humiliation made the elder sibling more adamant on the boy.

“ _You_ have a _boyfriend_!” teased Ruth with an older sister’s persistence.

“Nuh uh!”

“Uh huh! _Look_ at you! You’re _blushing!_ ” Then more staid: “You’d better not tell Eli. He doesn’t like Daniel. He warned he was plotting something and look what happened. He up and bought the ranch. Heard he’s buying up land all around Little Boston too. A town hall meeting is scheduled tonight. He’s supposed to speak there. Think your little boyfriend will go?”

“I _don’t_ have a _boyfriend!_ ” Mary argued through clenched teeth.

“If you say so. Well, let’s start our day before we get in trouble.”

Ruth departed from the room but Mary hesitated, stealing more time to study Daniel. The secret moment of connection with him warmed and strengthened her. He rose with a grimace, having trouble standing as he clutched his knee. Once he steadied himself, he poured what was left in the cup out in the fire, dousing the flames. As he limped on stiff legs into the tent, the girl turned away after he ducked inside.

Rather than inviting the Plainviews inside for breakfast again, mother fixed two plates for the oil man and his young protégé then instructed Mary to deliver it to them. If she refused or balked then punishment by The Lord’s hand, that being a swat from father, was inevitable. Luckily, it was a task she looked forward to doing. Determined to have her presence undeclared as a ghost in a cellar would, she carried the food to the campsite, anticipation shaking her small frame. Her plan was to sneak in, drop the food at the opening of the tent then charge off before anyone saw her. However, it didn’t work out quite that way. By the time she reached the tent Daniel had returned outside and, seeing her, chivalrously freed her of the burden.

“Good morning, my sweet Mary,” he exclaimed with a big smile that painted her red again.

“Morning,” she returned nervously, trying to hide her face from his sight.

“H.W. will be out in a moment.”

“I have to go back home to help clean up.”

She whirled around to flee but he stopped her.

“Wait, Mary. Come here. I won’t keep you long.”

Mary’s toes squirmed inside her shoes as she turned on her heels and faced her angel, her appointed boyfriend, and in doing so hoped that her face wasn’t as crimson as it felt.

“I wanted to ask you something,” he told her. “It’ll only take a moment.”

She nodded consent.

“Are you happy here?”

She shrugged.

“Don’t be afraid. You can tell _me_.”

“Sometimes.”

“ _Only_ sometimes?”

Jittery, she glanced over her shoulder at the house.

“Look at me when I speak to you, Mary,” Daniel was adamant but gentle. “You should always look someone in the eye when you speak to him.”

“Yes, sir.”

As he encouraged her to do, she peered at him directly in the disarming, otherworldly eye and saw the odd incendiary affect noticed before. It was like the core of his existence was afire inside him.

“Are you telling the truth?” pressed Daniel.

“Yes, sir. _Sometimes_ I’m happy. And that’s no lie because if I lie, my father w—“

She stopped abruptly and Daniel’s eyes narrowed with a gleaming unspoken rage that alarmed her.

“That’s good, Mary,” he guaranteed, his authoritative voice a combination of firm and gentle for her benefit. “You’ve told me enough. Run along, now.”

Permission given, Mary retreated back home as if God Himself wanted her to deliver a message. The safety of the porch’s distance away from the tent afforded her nerve to glance back at the man with whom she was immensely fascinated. Without being told, he understood her plight and left her in awe. Why wouldn’t he, if he was her guardian angel? Regretfully, she realized that she had divulged too much and now somebody had Hell to pay.

A yawning H.W. popped out of the tent and Daniel turned to address him. Terrible sorrow tore her apart as the father kissed the son’s forehead then gave him a gentle, playful shove. The boy staggered but gained his bearings then retaliated with a big two-handed push that didn’t just unbalance his father but sent him into a fit of hearty laughter.

Bittersweet was the sight for the crestfallen girl to witness. A bond of that sort with her own father was her greatest dream but his antiquated religious beliefs held her subservient to men. Abel Sunday’s gospel ruled it unwholesome and improper for a young woman to play in such a manner, especially if it was with a person of the opposite sex, even if he was a male relative. That was probably one added reason for his disdain toward Paul. The ache in her was akin to someone reaching into her chest and wringing out all her heart’s bloodied emotions. Almost weeping because of it, she longed to be a part of that scenario, for Daniel to play with _her_ , to protect _her_ , to love _her_. What was very real to H.W. was outright unattainable for her and it broke her heart. The oppression she experienced was suffocating and should Daniel Plainview ever adopt her as his own she wondered if she was too damaged for the change to be any better for her.


	3. III. The White Dress

**III. The White Dress**

Time behaved differently on the Sunday ranch as the days after Daniel’s arrival sped by at a blinding pace compared to the ones prior. The lackluster, quotidian life she hated was no more as the baking sun became more tolerable, the brackish water more drinkable and the ubiquitous cerulean skies were wide open with inexhaustible possibilities. Minutia such as turning corners or strolling over a hill was steeped with excited anticipation as Mary hoped to find Daniel standing before her. Incurably bewitched by the man, she gravitated toward his strength and the uncommon way about him that separated him from all other men she had ever known. Unable to help it, this was something she needed to take extra precautions to hide because voicing her enchantment of him even as a vague suggestion would mean her immediate removal from his company. Life bereft of him would be unendurable.

Journeying to the cottage, she hunkered down in the tall grass to watch Daniel supervise the men hauling in the furniture for the newly renovated home. If there once were ghosts residing, they had been evicted by the mighty seraph. At one point she guardedly stooped behind a tree trunk, escaping his eyesight when it roved in her direction as if it would disintegrate her upon touch. Poised for him to retrieve and lecture her, she was comforted when he simply gave an order to the movers. Glad her secret was yet undiscovered, she whirled around only for her good mood to alter into contempt upon catching Eli silhouetted against the sun. In the manner of a crouching gargoyle, he was positioned behind her atop the hill and, by his critical facial expression, she sensed that he had been spying on her the whole time.

A buzzing tone of enthusiasm had charged the town like fingers of electricity as the meeting approached that evening. News and gossip had reached every part of Isabella County within a few days from the announcement of the meeting until the day of at a staggering rate for being generated mostly through word of mouth. Everyone hypothesized and dreamt, hoping for the best improvements with a dash of interest for personal gain.

When evening came and while she provided water for the goats, father shouted her name. Immediately her willowy body trembled but she tried her best to be brave. He, mother and Eli stepped out of the house, on their way to Daniel’s town hall meeting. The severe tone of the Sunday patriarch’s voice forewarned the moment she’d spent the day bracing for.

“Mary, come here,” he barked.

Saying nothing, she abided with downcast eyes.

“What were you doing snooping around that cottage?”

“I wasn’t!”

She flinched before the unforgiving slap came, knocking her to the dusty ground.

“Don’t lie, young lady!” warned father. “I know the truth!”

“I’m not lying!” she cried rebelliously.

Another sharp smack across the face was deployed.

“Owww!”

“Eli said he saw you there. Your brother is a holy vessel, Mary, _he_ isn’t going to lie.”

“She plays with Mr. Plainview’s son,” Ruth explained, drawn out of the house by the violent commotion. “She probably went there looking for him, father.”

Abel scowled at his youngest child.

“If you weren’t doing anything wrong then there was no need to lie. You knew you were engaged in wrongdoing and now you committed two sins by lying to cover up the other. I don’t approve of you running after that Plainview boy. It’s inappropriate for a young girl to chase after boys. Everyone will think you’re a harlot. You will disgrace your family. I know Eli told the truth about what he saw. Your brother does not have it in him to be a liar.” He sighed, took a moment of recollection then advised, “Go to your room and repent for what you’ve done. You can play with H.W. but _only_ if _he_ calls on _you_.”

“Yes, sir.”

She stormed off to her room in loathsome submission, wanting to fulfill the penalty as soon as possible. The impulsive misbehavior in her leaving did not occur to her until she reached her room. Since nothing could be done to amend it at the present, she decided to take her punishment for that particular offence when the time came. Kneeling beside her bed, she buried her face in the bends of her elbows and prayed for angelic protection, knowing that father was close behind to police her repentance. Seconds after beginning, she switched to a tearful atonement when the squeak of the loose board outside her room announced Abel Sunday’s arrival. Fixed in the doorway, he listened intently to the words she raised her voice to mollify him with. Satisfied, he praised with aloofness, “That’s a good girl, Mary. You are forgiven.”

Only bothering to move the muscles that formed speech, she bleakly muttered, “Yes, father”. She was resilient, after all. Enough time was allotted for the domineering man to leave both the doorway and the premises for the meeting before she rose, face swollen by tears. At the window she stared reflectively at the dismantled campsite but it offered no comfort this time. H.W. had his wonderful father. The only thing Mary had was the Church of the Third Revelation.

The meeting did not detain the officials and residents alike of Little Boston for very long. Terming himself plainspoken, Daniel wasted no time in driving to his point. As a parvenu, a word meaning a poor person who came into wealth as she learnt from studies with Paul, Daniel identified with the impoverished town and campaigned heavily for a better quality of life for everyone. A revitalization that would eradicate poverty and make the destitute township prosper, winning it the envy of all its neighbors, was promised. There would be an inward bound army of his workers coming to build a drill that he pledged would deliver benefits of civic improvements, education, agriculture and infrastructure. An intense energy created an insatiable crowd, anxious to hear anything this man, this paragon of excellence, had to say about a brighter future. The like of Daniel Plainview was not common to Isabella County and all of Little Boston was as captivated by him as she was by meeting’s end. Everyone wanted to introduce themselves to him; his charismatic uniqueness a magnetism that they were hopelessly drawn to. Eli shared every syllable and each moment with her while tending the flock the next day and, according to him, the shifty prospector that he once distrusted even planned to build a road to the church.

“I thought you said we shouldn’t trust him,” reminded Mary in a way that boasted _I told you so_.

“He promised to give a $5,000 bonus to my church,” was the excuse. “Imagine all the good that can be done with the money. Perhaps I misjudged him. Perhaps Daniel is not too terrible after all.”

The blatant hypocrisy made the young girl want to vomit. Eli didn’t care about the Little Boston as a whole or its citizens the way Daniel did, nor did he even care much about his zealous congregation. Personal gain motivated everything Eli did. His hard negotiations traded with Daniel for the ranch hid the motive of swindling money from the oil man, striving for glorification within the church, not the other way around as he tried to make it appear. Daniel would do the backbreaking dirty work while Eli reaped the profits for doing nothing more than reciting psalms from the pulpit. How effective was it to mask your own malicious intentions by placing blame on your enemy to discredit him! _Scaring people to God was why the Devil was vilified_ , Paul cautioned in the past. It was a shrewd tactic that, Paul further explained, organized religion had executed since its inception. No-one would suspect the self-professed vessel of the Holy Spirit of the crimes he defamed the oil man with thanks to his squeaky clean image. The irony that the family name was Sunday did not surpass her.

What Daniel offered was threatening to the church in that a renewed life in the here and now was more lucrative than what would be appointed in any future afterlife. God would provide for them then. On Earth they needed to fend for themselves. Eli was pleased with himself but his sister sensed that Little Boston’s favorite son had bitten off a piece of forbidden fruit that the prospector relished dangling in front of him.

Soon the oil workers, called roughnecks, came like troops of ants and the hitherto sleepy Little Boston exhilarated with bustling industry and rehabilitation. The new arrivals even constructed their own town consisting of tents, the derrick and an open but sturdy structure that would serve as an office for Daniel and his right hand man Fletcher Hamilton, all springing from the town’s vast nothingness. This all captivated Mary as it took shape right in front of her.

H.W. was her basis to loiter, doing anything possible to keep Daniel in her sight. Daily exposure to the oil man allowed a gradual disappearance of the visible traces of her hopeless adoration for him. The florid face she got whenever he was near ended while the heat inside flared like an oven. But as long as he could not see it then she was fine with it.

What he _did_ see on her face was the plum-colored bruise blossomed across her cheekbone the day after she was attacked for visiting the cottage. When she would not look up at him but instead kept her head lowered to hide it he knew something was amiss. Gently nudging beneath her chin, he coaxed her to look up for his examination as she shut her eyes in avoidance of his.

“What happened?” he asked, his thin body quivering with great restraint. He knew the answer but wanted her to tell him herself.

“Nothing,” she feinted, her strained voice squeaky.

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

They stood facing each other for a prolonged suspension of time, she humiliated by his focus on the ugly mark, seeing first-hand what H.W. obviously informed him of. A gleam of hell was in his eyes that he struggled to control. His molten temper made her squirm in her awareness that he was deciding how to best handle the situation.

At last he spoke, but it wasn’t what she expected to hear: “Go on and play. H.W. is waiting for you.”

“Yes, sir,” she mumbled.

H.W., who was standing close by, snatched her hand and ventured away with her to where the crest of the hills shielded her from Daniel’s scathing eyesight.

The sun was just beyond its zenith and the day was at its hottest but the children did not notice; her playmate occupied her with a game of tag circling the office where a lone Fletcher pored over paperwork inside. Daniel, back from spending the morning conducting business with Al Rose the town realtor, traipsed toward them, a cigarette in one hand and a white box adorned with a pink ribbon in the other. The pink was a stark feminine contrast against the harsh surroundings of tough physical labor, sweat, dirt and masculinity and instantly captured her eye.

“Good afternoon, my sweet Mary,” he greeted with a wide smile, bending down to kiss her wounded cheek. “How have you been today? H.W. keeping you busy?”

“Yes,” she said simply, fighting the urge to run in the opposite direction. She was a big girl. She had strength enough to withstand his greatness.

“That’s good. Play is as important to a child as work. Are you coming to the opening of the well the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes. My whole family will be there.”

“That’s good,” he repeated, succinct.

He paused while she watched, with piqued interest, him drop the cigarette into the dust and crush it out with his foot. Nervousness about the bruise dissolved when she evaluated from the wobbly sway of his gangly frame and the odor of whiskey permeating his breath that he already had more to drink than he should have. Other than his gimpy leg, his intoxication was another disheartening revelation. Angels were forbidden to drink! Spirits of fire and light are above earthly vice, at least she _thought_ they were. Yet Daniel Plainview was an angel in _human flesh_ and perhaps _those_ angels are exceptions. The burden of fulsome human troubles settled across his shoulders needed to be alleviated by some means, she supposed. Who was she to complain when it was she who weighed him down?

“Go have some fun and get out of everyone’s way,” he instructed firmly.

The white parcel still in hand, he joined Fletcher inside the office, sitting behind his desk without granting her a second look. Curious about his behavior, she chalked the uncharacteristic egregious actions up to his drunkenness and took them in stride, knowing better from her past experience.

“Come on,” H.W. broke through her thoughts. “Bet you can’t catch me.”

A challenge was issued to her with a gentle shove before he scurried away. Forsaking her appraisal, Mary laughed then burst into pursuit and thus they spent the better part of an hour chasing each other in circles back and forth around the office. During brief intervals of rest, she stole glimpses of Daniel through the screened window. Often preoccupation with his facts and figures distracted him but he sporadically peered outside to entertain himself with their juvenile happiness. An intriguing assortment of men came and went to converse with him on work-related topics, each one greeting the children with affable smiles or quick hellos. When the heat eventually was too much for them, she and H.W. stooped down to scratch games of tic-tac-toe in the dirt.

The dim glow of dusk swiftly approached as if the sun itself lost consciousness by its exhaustive work of baking the land and the big boss man left his paperwork to hobble back outside, the white box in his hand again.

“Mary,” he called, gaining her immediate undivided attention. He beamed at the pair for what was an eternity before saying to her, “I have something for you.”

The parcel was presented to her but she only stood in place and gawked at it, dumbfounded that she would be worth thinking of during his busy day, amusing him as he extended it to her further.

“Go on,” he urged. “Take it. It belongs to you.”

Revenge was best served cold, it is said, but Daniel served his brand with warmth. Knowing that the gift would provoke the holy wrath of the Sunday men, she was reluctant to accept.

“My father…”

“Tell your father that I gave it to you and that I wouldn’t let you refuse. If he has a problem then he can come to see _me_ about it.”

Mary winced, detecting the harsh bitterness in his voice when he referred to Abel as her father.

“Can I open it?”

“Not right now. Not out here. You don’t want to risk getting it dirty.”

Not know what else to say she simply thanked him.

“You are so very welcome.”

Cupping her face with his enormous hands, he leant down to plant a solemn kiss on her flaxen head then repeated the amorous deed with his son.

“H.W., would you be so kind as to escort our Mary back home? It isn’t smart to let a lady wander alone in the dark. Hurry back. You and I still have work to do before our day ends. Be a gentleman and carry the lady’s package. That’s it. Good boy.”

“Come on, Mary,” the boy said, taking Mary’s hand in his and the box in the other. “Let’s go.”

As the children scampered away, the girl soured at having to leave, equating the unfinished work Daniel cited to be more of the men’s business that her sex was not entitled to know. Home, where she was more an inmate than a daughter and where trouble now pended over the gift, was the last place she wanted to be. A blatant challenge was brought forth by the prospector to father through the gift giving, perhaps provoking him to strike Mary again as a reason to give Old Man Sunday a taste of his own medicine. It would undoubtedly be effective, as father believed the members of his family were objects he possessed rather than individual human beings with rights. Disgrace that an outsider would make an extravagant purchase for a piece of his property, an expense that he could not make himself, would be an unforgivable obscenity to Abel.

Would Daniel deliberately risk jeopardizing her when he was meant to protect her? Hitting her would be bold but she knew that as far as father was concerned _he_ owned and ruled her and, therefore, was unrestricted in doing whatever he pleased. At the door, she wished H.W. a parting good night and went inside, preparing for more tribulations of the abused. Just as reliable as the sun rising in the east every morning, father noticed the package the minute she entered.

“What do you have there, Mary?” he inquired.

Readying herself for a familiar slap, she answered, “A gift.”

“Who gave it to you?” The voice was calm and menacing.

The answer would perpetrate the war.

“Mr. Plainview,” she told, deciding that the honest, short response would fare her best in ending it.

“What is it?”

The deceptively tranquil tone turned his daughter ashen with dread as she shuddered slightly. But she shrugged to dispel her panic, then was demanded to open it. Everyone gathered around as she placed the box on the table and untied the ribbon. The holy vessel pretended that he didn’t care but watched with a critical hawk’s eye from a corner at the back of the room. Off came the box top and the tissue paper was parted to expose a beautiful white dress nestled inside. It was the most gorgeous thing she had ever seen…other than its giver.

“Oh, look at that!” mother crooned, lifting the immaculate frock up for all to see. “It’s _beautiful!_ You _must_ write Mr. Plainview a thank you note.”

“She must _return_ it,” Eli argued, dampening the women’s small joy. Mary supposed jealousy had made his acceptance of the oil man short-lived. “It’s not right for her to keep it.”

“Why not?” mother inferred. “It’s a perfectly fine dress.”

“It’s from misbegotten gains. Mark my words.”

“Let her have it, Eli,” interrupted father, shocking Mary profoundly. “It would be rude to insult Daniel’s generosity by sending it back. We don’t want to offend him after he’s been remarkably charitable to us. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt this one time. But Mary will tell him she cannot accept anything more.”

Eli’s displeasure equaled Mary’s amazement.

“Yes, sir,” Mary agreed, ecstatic that she was cleared to keep the gift.

“Take it to your room,” mother told her. “You’ll wear it at the well’s opening ceremony. You can write a letter to thank him after supper.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She hastened the prized dress away to her room, opened the box and buried her nose in the crisp fabric, breathing in its newness. Rare was the scent of newness in the impoverished Sunday household! For it she was thankful. Idleness, however, was scorned in the household and was a sign of thanklessness. Raised to not be a wastrel for anything, she raced back out to assist with supper. Meal time crawled by, flustering Mary because she was anxious to write her note of thanks to Daniel. The whole time she recited what she planned to write in her head, wondering if she should risk telling him more details than she should’ve about her living circumstances and her feelings for him. Relief cascaded over her when supper at last finished and, after her chores, she rushed straight back to her room. At the table against the wall that served as a desk, she attentively wrote:

 _Dear Mr. Plainview:  
Thank you for my dress. I like it very much. It is very pretty. I can’t wait to wear it_ _when the well opens.  
Sincerely,  
Mary Sunday  
P.S. I wish you were my father. I love you._

Satisfied with the chosen simplicity of the composition, her chest heaved dreamily as she held the note up in review. It was good. Concise and direct. Exactly the way he spoke. Folding the paper, she tucked it underneath the dress inside the box, intending to present it to him when she saw him next. Then reconsidering its location of concealment with impromptu insight, she removed it from the box, citing it an obvious place if Eli or father was tempted to snoop, and concealed it beneath her pillow.

While later drifting asleep, she reassessed furnishing the note to her much older sweetheart. Its contents would bring catastrophe to her not only if Eli or father discovered what she wrote but if Daniel rejected her, as she knew he certainly would. Curse the age difference! She wanted to marry him and had she been older or he younger then things would be very different. For now age made it highly inappropriate and she thought as if she would die if she couldn’t have him. Maybe after he hit his strike they could still run away and live happily ever after like in the bedtime stories mother used to read to her when she was a toddler. They could then take things from there as time and age progressed. Securing their happy ending deep down within her heart, she nurtured the desire that Daniel would ascend upon father and Eli in divine justice and obliterate them so they could never disturb their perfect paradise. Little by little, with those tiring dreams occupying her mind, she slipped into sleep, the only place where, unbeknownst to her childish mind, utopia was possible.

The sun undertook its sole job of scorching the land and roasting the men who toiled in the fields in full force the next day. The Sunday girls were assigned to the rare case of tending the goats together because Eli had gone to verify blueprints he had drawn up for a renovation he wanted to make on the church with the money procured from his sale to Daniel. Although a portrait of serenity, Mary was edgy inside. Ruth caught her staring contemplatively at the rising derrick over the hill and read her thoughts.

“Why don’t you go down and play with him?” she offered. “I’ll watch the goats.”

“We’ll get in trouble,” protested Mary.

“We only come up here in pairs so one will have the company of the other. I can watch the herd myself. Just stay clear of the house and the church and you’ll be fine.”

Uncertainty kept Mary’s feet grounded.

“Are you _sure_?”

“Go!” Ruth urged with compassion.

Exonerated, there was no more hesitation as she rocketed off with the speed of a jack rabbit, slowing only when she reached the perimeter of the work field. She advanced upon the office in tentative haste, handling the precious thank you note which she’d secreted in her dress pocket first thing in the morning. If she was actually going to hand it to him or not she still didn’t know. At the moment she wanted to simply gaze upon his handsome face and dream the fantasies of all girls trapped in her despicable lifestyle. Hoping for just a single glimpse of her idol, her timorous heart skipped a beat when she found him standing outside the office, observing the men as they added the final touches on the derrick’s construction, oblivious as usual to her presence.

Idling outside, she positioned herself furtively around the building’s opposite corner angled to Daniel’s left, basking in his glory. There he was: the great sentinel Argus, untiring and ready to defend, a mighty Ophanim perched at the edge of Heaven with unblinking, sleepless eyes, prepared to annihilate with his blessed wrath. She wondered what his Heavenly visage was like compared to his earthly one. If an angel’s natural form was beyond man’s comprehension of beauty then he would own an impossible beauty that would drive any human gazer mad. What did he look like beyond flesh and bone?

An incredibly handsome man, he was far better looking than her brothers or anybody else in Little Boston. Gaunt, tall and sinewy, Daniel always possessed the mien of a vainglorious king presiding over his territory. From this post, he carefully monitored the work being done on his kingdom. Full of conceit, he bore all the hallmarks of greatness: a sharp mind, a strategic nature, a perverse tenacity and ruthless ambition matched only in Eli. Arrogance always kept his head high with a posture of stately conduct that contrasted the lameness of his leg and his horrid compulsion for liquor. Yet those too human qualities never subtracted from his beauty.

“Daniel?” one of the roughnecks addressed as he strode towards the oil man. “May I have a word with you?”

Daniel turned more in Mary’s direction and she gasped before scurrying fully around the corner and out of sight.

“Yes,” he answered, his voice amiable. “Let’s go inside and have a seat.”

From around the corner she peeped, watching as he and the roughneck climbed the steps to the office, Daniel in the lead, then arranging herself beneath the window across from his desk so she could see his face. The high, regal cheekbones, hollowed out cheeks, strong jaw line, squared chin, all attractive physical traits many Little Boston women admired…and she could not tear away from. Sundry townswomen gossiped about where his wife could be, how much of a fool she was for not standing at the side of such a good looking man and an adorable little boy and that they would happily replace her. Even the married ones were not above profane commentary. He had to be a widower, they rationalized, and plotted how they could put themselves in his marriage bed. Those women were hated by Mary, for she surmised that they only wanted him for his money and he deserved much better. He deserved someone who loved him for who he was, bad habits and all. Age was an improbable measure for it to be her, so she wanted it to be someone she knew a worthy candidate. Perhaps mother would suffice.

That was it! Too young for him herself then maybe the resolution would be a courtship of mother and then the three – four, counting H.W. – could escape the absurdity of this desolate ghost town! If her real father and Eli wanted to be untouchable figureheads amongst their disciples then so be it. Let the Sunday women embark on a new life with Daniel. Ruth could join the new family if she was inclined but Mary didn’t think she’d abscond from her love interest Matthew Atkinson, a young man who lived closer to town. That was fine; they would keep in touch by post at the very least.

Then those equivocal thoughts trained back on what was deemed most important at the moment: staring at Daniel with large puppy eyes. Heavens, he was _handsome_! In her dark world she was a flower left in the pitch of darkness stretching toward the sun and Daniel Plainview was that essential sun.

Her wanting of the oil man was broken by a familiar hymn sung as one out of the throats of several male voices and her sight veered to where Eli led a gaggle of his devotees from the church down to the derrick. She groaned as her brother and a few of the women neared the roughnecks and introduced themselves, inviting them to the church for fellowship as they pinned Church of the Third Revelation trademark cloth crosses onto their shirts. Out of aggravation, Mary kicked a rock because she could not kick her brother. Eli’s attention swerved to the office before he made a bee-line towards it, hands clasped before him in his unsettling, pious custom.

She watched him gain admittance and engage in small talk with Daniel. The stakes between the two alpha males raised the moment Eli said that he would bless the well at its inauguration. He did not ask or recommend. He impudently assumed that he would without preface or authorization as if he was permitted. Daniel’s cold demeanor and stony disposition resembled that of a rattlesnake coiling to strike and Mary poised for it. Eli was either too stupid to notice Daniel’s appraisal or too blazon to care. Either way the devious evangelist persevered, rash in his telling Daniel what to say verbatim, something about Eli being the proud son of the hills. To Mary’s surprise Daniel forwent the expected discourse and sanctioned the blessing at a designated time of four o’ clock.

Eli left unscathed but from the glare of Daniel’s empyrean eyes searing into the younger man’s back Mary guessed it wouldn’t be for much longer.


	4. IV Different Shades of Black

**IV. Different Shades of Black**

Indolent Little Boston burst into festive, preparatory activity on the well’s inauguration day. Everyone contributed, whether it was food or manual labor, and wasted no time in finishing their joyous gestures, aspiring to please Daniel in every way possible with their extra effort. Mary knew it would be simple for her to gratify the prospector: all she needed to do was wear his gift and he would be ecstatic. Antsy to debut it to the town, her prediction was that she would steal the attention everyone else craved. Great care was taken to not soil the immaculate garment while donning it and Ruth topped off her look by braiding her hair, tying it with a large white bow.

“Your boyfriend is going to think you’re pretty,” Ruth teased.

This time the taunt was ignored. It wasn’t _H.W._ she wanted to impress but his father yet Ruth was still ignorant of that. Love and trust for her sister were strong but it was one secret she was averse in divulging. Right now, she purely wanted to do justice to the wonderful gift and make Daniel proud.

The time came and the family walked towards the derrick where the rest of the townspeople were already gathered in wait for the kick off of the ceremony. Mingled at the foot of the gargantuan construction, every one was clad in their Sunday best but absolutely no-one compared with Mary. By then the black and blue on her cheek had mended good as new and was less of a provocation for Daniel to assault father, a blessing with the close proximity they shared on this day. Excited to wear the garment, she was also fully aware that it was the brightest, most recent addition to the town other than the derrick and thereby attracted eyes of envious discernment. With all those prying stares upon her she reconsidered, thinking of how it would affect her family’s standing in the community. Redoubtably, the influence would be negative despite the revitalization of the entire town being initiated with the Sunday family, and if she had not promised Daniel that she would wear it that day she would have made a hasty retreat back to the house to change out of it.

“ _You_ look lovely, Mary,” mother’s friend Betsy McDermott complimented.

“Thank you,” the girl said meekly.

“Where on Earth did your mother buy such a pretty dress?”

“Mother didn’t buy this dress for me.”

“No? Then who did?”

“Mr. Plainview did.”

“Oh. I see.” The curt words were laced with spite. “He must really like you then.”

“I suppose.”

“Come now, Mary,” mother called, gesturing for her daughter to join the family. “Up front where Mr. Plainview can see you.”

Mary scuffled forward, positioned in front of Eli with the town’s smaller children on either side of her. She spotted Daniel standing with the roughnecks at the mouth of the well, performing a final inspection of the drill. Superb in his expensive dark blue suit, no male other than H.W., emulating his father’s dress, looked as dandy. Worries about the town’s reaction to the dress faded with her optimism revived because perhaps Daniel actually did think of her as his and the dress was meant to reflect that and announce it to the town. Today she certainly looked like a Plainview if nothing more.

Daniel descended the wooden steps of the well’s plinth quickly for a man with a weak leg, amiably greeting everyone along the way. Instead of stopping before them he headed straight for Mary. Bending down, he applied a chaste kiss to her repaired cheek that made her feel like she was being burnt alive, dually from the tender display and the jealous stares of the others. Amid the sweet scent of the new wood from the derrick, there lingered his musky cologne left upon her cheek and she breathed deep in enjoyment. Her hand was swallowed by his with a gentle request for her to follow his lead. She willingly acquiesced, ending up at his side before everyone she had ever known, her small hand still engulfed by his large one and H.W. flanking his opposite side. _This_ was the family portrait she yearned to have and she wanted to capture and lock every bit into memory.

“I thank you all so much for visiting with us at this time,” her substitute father began in preliminary. “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of you and I hope very much in the months to come I’ll be able to visit with each and every one of you. I’m better at digging holes in the ground than making speeches so let’s forget the speech for this evening, just make it a simple blessing.”

Mary’s attention roved to Eli who smiled and teemed with fanatical vanity, hands primly across his stomach as he awaited Daniel’s presentment of him to the community. On her brother’s behalf, she was publicly embarrassed that he was nothing more than an opportunist expecting this fine gentleman of business to market him and his holy cause. But what happened next surprised even Mary: the young prophet had pushed the oil man so the oil man was going to shove back.

“You see,” soliloquized Daniel, “one man doesn’t prospect from the ground. It takes a whole community of good people, such as yourselves, and this is good. We stay together. We pray together, we work together, and if the Good Lord smiles kindly on our endeavor, we share in the wealth together. Now, before we spud in Mary’s Well Number One…” He and Mary shared a quick glance and the profusion of unspoken affection exchanged between them alleviated the mounting tension. “…named for the lovely Miss Mary Sunday, here by my side…” Those words choked Mary with happiness; she was finally at his side where she belonged. The victory, however, wasn’t long as he glared at Eli and delivered the mortal blow: “…a proud daughter of these hills, I’d just like to say God bless these honest labors of ours, and, of course, God bless you all. Amen.”

He told H.W. to go and the boy bolted up the stairs to start the drill as fast as he could by direction of his father. With a clang and a bevy of mechanical noise it roared to life. The well was officially sanctioned and ready for drilling.

“That’s it, ladies and gentleman!” proclaimed Daniel above the racket. “Al Rose has very generously provided some refreshments for this occasion out of his own pocket. Thank you, Al. If you’ll all just care to help yourselves, I’ll be back in a minute.”

Turning to Mary, he cupped her face in his hands and bestowed another kiss to the top of her head. More heat spiked through her body in competition of the desert breeze blistering their skin. Before her swoon had time to subside, he was off, leaning heavily on the railing as he ascended the stairs to the derrick. The bewitched child stole a quick glance at the object of her affection while he climbed then turned her back so as to not stir any cruel hearsay that would further mar his reputation. The dress had been more than enough to accomplish that, a demon with wicked intent and all.

Demoralized and seething in pretentious rage, the invalidated but unwavering Eli slunk away like the serpent in paradise but with better restraint than Mary gave him credit for, his obsequious church members tailing behind. Snickering to herself, she enjoyed knowing that he was not as resilient as she. And he claimed to be better than her! None of them concerned her in the least any way. She was at Daniel’s side in other ways heretical to her brother and their loose family bond. She truly was a proud daughter, though surrogate it may have been.

While she lumbered back to her biological family, a few of the children coerced her into playing chase, a welcome acquittal from sharing in the social meal where Eli would regain control by presiding over saying grace. She wanted no part of his showboating if she didn’t have to be and tagged along with the others her age. Instead of her definite fate at the table, she craved joining H.W. and his father by the drill. It wasn’t fair that Daniel had given her a taste of what could be when she was ready to feast like a glutton! But father, who had been searching for her, demanded that she partake in supper and the prayer before she could cleanly break away. There was no choice but to meet her obligation of sitting with the family, eating and suffering through Eli’s hypocritical supplication. To help herself through, she ruminated on Paul’s welfare, whereabouts and if he was in good company with plenty to eat. She needed to remember to ask Daniel about her brother and his peculiar wanderlust in hope of setting her mind at ease.

The mealtime affair’s never-ending duration was Hell and she squirmed with anticipation for its end. When at last it did, she was relieved to recommence the games with the other children. By this time H.W. materialized from out of nowhere and joined in. With the sun well beyond its zenith, the land progressively cooled, granting her a second wind. Round and round she raced, pursuant and pursued along the line of tables with the others. The great lingering heat bore its toll on them after thirty prolonged minutes, slowing them from running playmates to huffing joggers.

Father sat alone at the table while the rest of the family were either socializing or grabbing last chance seconds. Grateful that he left her alone, she muttered a quick prayer only to ask that he continued to mind his own business. At the far end of the table while making her turn she staggered, nearly tripping over her own foot. Recovering, she thought how unforgivable it would have been if her dress had gotten soiled. Both mother and Daniel would have been upset, there was no doubt, and that in turn would upset her. To worsen matters, father would christen her an ingrate then hit her for ruining the new outfit just to show Daniel that he could. Only a tragic ending would come out of that scenario.

Unbeknownst to her, as she careered around the opposite length of the table, Daniel had seated himself across from father and his arm shot out to hook around her midriff, halting her short. The unexpected motion scared the daylights out of her, exacerbated when she realized who had accosted her.

“Mary!” he addressed, drawing her around to face him. “Mary Sunday!”

She was dynamite ready to detonate for reasons twofold: her puppy love crush on the older Plainview still made her writhe whenever he was near and because they were beneath father’s critical eye, kept peripherally upon them despite his evident intimidation by the oil man.

“Do you like your new dress?” Daniel questioned gently, taking her hands into his.

“Yes,” she responded in her usual sheepish manner. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I thought you’d like it.” Then his tone changed faintly to belie his indirect, unsubtle contestation: “Are you happy I came here?”

One needn’t be an adult to decipher what those words meant to the other man across the table who glared at Daniel from the corner of his eye.

“Yes,” she quickly, stealthily replied. The truth of it stabbed father in the heart but she did not care. She would not lie to the man she idolized and whose company she preferred. She was raised to tell the truth, no matter who it hurt. Since when did father own a heart any way?

Placing supportive hands over her shoulders, Daniel’s compassion hinted an understanding of how it was to be in her shoes. Perhaps he _did_ understand and this was why he’d readily taken her under his wing. Much like he had with Eli only an hour ago, Daniel got to the crux of his onslaught against the Sunday men: “Your daddy doesn’t hit you any more, does he? Does he now?”

The girl was stunned at the unfaltering nerve this man possessed to stand against the one person she feared above all others. Speechless, she could not meet his eyes but he held her firmly and leaned in closer to her. As he drew nearer, she smelled not only the saltiness of sweat on his skin but the overpowering stench of whiskey, as customary as his kisses, on his breath. Though he spoke directly to her, the girl was aware with trepidation that Daniel was speaking obliquely to father, warning him.

“Better not, right?” he instigated. “ _I’ll_ take care of you.” His hand slid from her shoulders, down the length of her arms and took her hands in his again before continuing to pound in his point like a hammer. “No more hitting, right? _No more hitting_. Now go. Go and play some more and don’t come back.”

Disoriented by the magnitude of what transpired, Mary bulleted away, leaving her angel between her and her tyrant father, as Daniel nonchalantly removed the flask from his jacket pocket and drank, inspecting with unbridled hatred the expression of father who watched his daughter yield pliantly and without question to the oil prospector. From a safe distance, she caught the two men exchange grave, unspoken threats before father passively bent to Daniel’s more officious glare and dropped his eyes to the table.

Retreating from the silent war, she drifted out of the range of the assembly and found H.W. sitting quietly outside the mess hall. For several minutes the children were together in peace, the boy tossing pebbles across the field from a pile he’d stacked earlier on the steps. A few of them were dropped into her upturned palm as a benevolent beckon and she joined his sport.

“Your dad asked if my dad still hits me,” she casually informed her companion.

H.W. only skipped his rocks.

“He asked me in front of my father and my father heard him.”

“Don’t worry. My dad won’t let him hit you again.”

Mary opened her mouth to reply but the words died in her throat when they overheard two men locked in verbal battle. With a finger raised to his lips, H.W. signaled her to speak not another word and she nodded comprehension. Judging by their voices, the arguers were their fathers, separated from the gathering to tangle in this most inhospitable discussion. Before being spotted, they scrambled for cover around a corner, intending to eavesdrop as the men halted near where they recently had been.

“There are no excuses,” Daniel was stating. “You’re a bully and a coward. Only a bully and a coward picks on children and I will not tolerate it.”

“It’s not up to you as to how I run my family, Daniel,” father countered, his voice calm, brave and hiding his fear of physical reprimand. “It’s up to God, not any mortal here. The Good Book warns _Spare the rod, spoil the child_. My children are God fearing as a result and it’s fared them well.”

Neither man was willing to back down from the other: Abel Sunday, in his passive-aggressive manner, invented a defensive justification for the ill treatment he imposed on his children but Daniel’s articulated disdain, bluntly called the other man out on his crime.

“Your children don’t fear _God_ , Abel,” corrected the prospector, “they fear _you_. If you need to make your children fear you then that makes you an incompetent parent.”

“I beg your pardon, but who are _you_ to question my parenting methods? What makes you think you have the right to invade our land and are entitled to change our way of life?”

Daniel glared at the other man to underscore his hostility: “I _own_ this land. I own everything beneath it and everything on it.” Then he finalized with added malignity: “Some people shouldn’t be allowed to breed. You’re one of them.”

Ending the terse criticism of his despised foe, he mounted the steps and entered the mess hall, leaving a confounded Abel to stew in antipathy. A few seconds passed before he regained the sense to skulk away, his injured pride tucked between his legs like the tail of a wounded dog.

“See?” H.W. whispered. “I _told_ you my dad would protect you. He said he would and he never goes back on his word.”

Mary never had any doubt that he would.

Day in, day out Mary monitored the cloak and dagger enmity that persistently developed between Eli and Daniel since the prospector’s failure of presenting the young cleric at the inauguration. Unappreciative of the newcomer’s wiles, Eli matched any deceit and ambition from his older rival blow by blow. The days were counted and she privately set the date of Eli’s next orchestrated ploy of vengeance. The enormity of the power struggle between the influential men rocked Little Boston worse than the earthquake had. The ambitious holy man and the weathered oil man were both viable sovereigns of the land: one born of it, the other owner of it, and the people of Little Boston were flotsam tossed in the maelstrom as they fought to stay out of the way.

Whereas initially the population of the small town had been hypnotized by the sweet nothings Daniel once whispered in their ears, in the ensuing weeks they came to view the invasion of the prospector and his men with sullen misgivings. True to his word, they received everything he’d promised and their plain rustic lifestyle improved in those aspects. But the exchange was too precious a sacrifice when their freedom was trampled over and, despite the encouragement to carry on with their normal lives, it was impossible to postpone life without beleaguering the drilling. The dispirited town was one torn: divided between those who thought Daniel had come to save it and those who were convinced he was sent to damn it. Unable to adapt, many embittered families abandoned the homes they’d spent generations in, cursing the day Little Boston traded its Bible black simplicity for oil black complication.

On the flip side, nothing but improvement was abound for the littlest Sunday. With a majority of her time spent with H.W. at the outskirts of the Plainview cottage or the fields, she took no further delivery of punishments from father. Her crush on Daniel was better subdued thanks to longer amounts of time spent near him. With time, her dreams were realized in that he’d accepted her not as a mere playmate for H.W. but as a full-fledged member of his family, referring to her as such when he greeted her with the usual paternal kiss upon her head. Inasmuch as her fear gradually receded, her love for him thrived greater each day.

“Mary Plainview,” he addressed when he returned home one dusky evening. “Do you like the sound of that? Would you like it to be your name some day?”

The implication colored her cheeks as she stared at the ground and bit her fingernails fretfully, nodding. He reached down to take her fingers from her mouth.

“Don’t do that, young lady,” he gently scolded. “It’s a bad habit. Leave the bad habits to us men.”

He crouched down, his bad leg troubling him, then pulled her into a warm embrace.

“I love you,” he confessed quietly in her ear. “Do you love me back?”

“Yes,” she responded truthfully, her throat tight and voice grating.

“Good.”

He kissed her forehead and stood upright with a grimace. After duplicating the affectionate display with H.W., he entered the cottage and the children recommenced their play.

Nightfall sent Mary dreams of what she considered an ideal life: Daniel discovered that he was her real father and burst through the door of the Sunday homestead, furnishing the substantial documentation to Abel. The old man had no choice but to relinquish custody to her rescuer who swept her away to live with him and H.W. in a house at an undisclosed location. Lost time was made up for as he spoiled her rotten, amending the poverty and abuse she had always known with the lavish riches and abundant love she rightfully ought to have had all along.

 _I’ll take care of you._ His pacifying vow resonated through her memory and dreams. _I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you…_

Morning brought her to the bricolage church where Eli was holding service for a small group of his most dedicated disciples. A reluctant observer, Mary wanted to be anywhere other than the church where the purveyor of her misery reigned. Her preference: at the Plainviews. Tired of suppression by religion, she desired to break free in every aspect, even if it meant selling her soul to the black unearthed God who Daniel served. Nothing could be worse than this ecclesiastic nightmare, it just couldn’t be.

Her obligation as a sister and a Sunday was mechanically performed, watching from the rear of the room while Eli’s gift cured old lady Hunter of her arthritis. Footsteps across the bare boards beside her drew Mary’s attention midway through the grand spectacle as someone stepped into the chaotic chapel and slid in to stand behind the back row, bending down to excuse himself to the man sitting in front of him who was erroneously bumped while he squeezed in. The great seraph at last had found his way to church, come to bear witness first hand all the abysmal weeping and gnashing of teeth demonstrated inside the supposed house of worship! His fair eyes blazed with fiery abhorrence so that even she feared to disturb his investigation of the religious histrionics. Rather _she_ sat quietly and observed _him_ , relishing in the overcast expression that turned his eyes into invisible daggers that slit her brother’s throat. He was offended by her brother’s antics and who was a greater authority on all subjects holy than a mighty seraph? The weight of worry did not trouble her. If he decided to smite them all where they stood, her love and faith in him would leave her untouched.

Eli’s whisper burst into a denied shout about the removal of a ghost, but Mary was busy contemplating Daniel’s reason for finally appearing in church. Perhaps he’d heard so much about the flagrant exploits he needed to see them for himself. But what purpose would it serve other than to entertain him? Was he planning to exact a justifiable retribution against her brother as well? He did not sit but stood glowering throughout the entirety of Eli’s outlandish animated scenario, patient only by way of perverse fascination. Finding it too ridiculous for his liking, he turned and walked back out the door, disappointing her that he had not noticed her vying presence.

An daring peep revealed him waiting outside, making a poor effort to hide his disapproval for what he couldn’t fully ignore inside. An urge to wave to him was suppressed because he looked so _angry_ that she thought better of it. After the exhibition stopped another ten minutes later, Mary united with a large portion of the congregation as it left, hoping to be lost among their numbers and go unnoticed by her adopted father. Sensing the blackness of the angel’s unannounced presence, the little girl wanted to escape him for the first time. A moment of panic pierced her when the crowd bottlenecked at the exit because Eli was there bidding them a good day and blessing them. When the man in front of her stopped to shake Eli’s hand, she saw her chance and charged through the group to outdoors. Daniel slowly ambled toward the entrance again where Eli was saying good-bye to his sheep, his head down as he walked so he missed Mary skid around the corner of the church.

Her only wish was to keep Daniel nearby, not to listen to what they were saying. Their topic was the gruesome, untimely death of a roughneck named Joe Gundha at the well and Eli’s overbearing lecture about his disrespected wishes to bless the well and the flouting habits of the roughnecks. Already the bad dreams shaped in her subconscious with every syllable uttered. What fixed her in place was the opportunity to watch another round of the cruel pastime the two men engaged each other in at every given moment. The roles were switched this time: Eli was the cat taunting Daniel’s mouse yet the oil entrepreneur did not relent. Mary wanted her brother to squirm in the exclusive way that only Daniel could manage; she felt avenged and loved every second.

Eli bragged with increased persistence that numbed Mary’s brain but the impervious Daniel closed the gap between himself and the cleric, holding an arresting stance as he argued for his men’s unrestricted freedom from Eli’s impractical Bible thumping. The two interposed each other’s sentences and neither probably heard the argument of the other for want of the upper hand. For a moment Mary expected him to strike Eli down, but Daniel had a solid control of his explosive nature as he tried to reason with the younger man. She wanted desperately to see Eli smote down by the hand of her angel and would have sold her soul to the highest bidder to see it! Wicked as it was, she willed it to happen by holding her breath and concentrating as hard as she could.

The strain between the men was granted minuscule relief when Daniel stepped backwards a few paces not as a man backing down from adversity but as one whose word was final, asking Eli to see to Joe’s possessions and make certain they were sent back home. The preacher held his tongue, not bothering to look at his opponent. But the prospector couldn’t resist a sudden stop then turned for one last biting remark.

“Heard you were planning some renovations,” he lured.

“Yes, our congregation is growing strongly,” agreed Eli. “We need more room.”

“That was one goddamn hell of a show,” taunted the oil man then strolled away.

“We were happy to have you, Daniel,” the Pharisee returned, pretending to be the bigger person with insincere welcome.

While Eli’s attention was on the back of the departing Daniel, Mary dashed off before her brother discovered her secretly loitering. Deeply rooted within her was the temptation to circle around the church after her father figure who was returning to his office. Terror of getting caught rerouted her to the Plainview residence instead. No harm would come to her if she followed, she trusted; she simply did not want to hear Eli’s querulous reprimand and he would definitely give her one after the verbal tussle he’d just dealt with. Besides, H.W. was probably lurking around the cottage and his company sufficed for the time being.

True to form, he was sitting out on the porch in a ramshackle chair, engrossed with a book in his lap, head bent low to the pages and supported with elbows propped up on his knees. Unaware of her proximity until she stopped and called to him, the boy startled. She laughed and it was returned once his natural color came back to him.

“What are you reading?” she asked, craning her neck to better her view of the book.

“Nothing,” he replied flippantly. “A book about economics.”

“ _Economics_? What’s _that_?”

“It’s business stuff.”

“Why are you reading it?”

“If I’m going to take over my dad’s business someday I have to know this junk.”

“Don’t you learn about it in school?”

“I don’t go to school.”

“How come?”

“My dad says I’ll learn all I’ll ever need to know from him.”

“Then why are you reading the book?”

H.W. shrugged.

“I dunno. Something to do, I guess.”

Horror squeezed Mary’s suggestible heart as she inquired, “Your dad doesn’t _force_ you to read books about economics like my dad forces me to read the Bible, _does_ he?”

“Nah, I _told_ you. My dad’s not like that. I’m reading it ‘cause I want to.”

The girl was relieved.

“I can think of a _million_ other things to do that’s better than reading about economics.”

Crafty H.W. smiled then asked, “Better than reading the Bible too?”

Mary smiled back, answering, “ _Much_ better.”

The boy snapped the cover of the book closed, rose from the chair and sat on the steps, scooting over to make room for her and the pair stared at the busy, clanging derrick over the sandy knolls. The fresh news about Joe Gundha’s death dampened Mary’s good spirits until she could not help but to question her friend about the details of the misfortune.

“I heard about what happened,” she disclosed to her friend. “To that man.”

“To Joe?”

“Your dad was telling Eli about it. He told him to speak at the burial tomorrow.”

“Yeah. I don’t want to go but my dad says it’s a great goodwill gesture for me to be there with him. It builds loyalty and trust in the workers.”

“I’ll be there if you want company.”

“I’ll be with my dad. But you can join us.”

“Then I’ll come. I’ll probably have to any way if Eli’s going to preach.”

“He’s only supposed to say a few words to honor Joe.”

“He’ll preach. That’s what he does. It’s what he _always_ does.”

The day of the burial was a solemn dedication to Joe Gundha’s life. A skeleton crew remained to work at the well while everyone else paid respects to their fallen brethren at a modest grave site. The burial place was a small plot on the patch of land that native Little Bostonians used for their dead but they were happy to accept Joe into their most sacred grounds. Several morose townsfolk attended the interment, among them the pious Sunday clan because father believed it blasphemous if they did not show. A small mercy was given that Eli had earlier ventured to the graveyard with congregation members for preparation so the family was not graced by his presence.

Hearts filled her eyes when she glimpsed the statuesque Daniel and impish H.W. at the forefront of the crowd, dressed impeccably and with great expense. H.W. glimpsed Mary and waved. Her lips parted in a wide smile as she fought to maintain her place with the Sundays when she yearned to join her friend and her angel. But it was a different story when Daniel’s eyes fell on her and he called her over. Inertia cracked, she charged away, a thoroughbred out of the starting gate toward the Plainviews. The furious dissension that emanated from Abel and Eli smothered the atmosphere as Daniel swept her into his arms.

“My sweet Mary,” he inveigled with praise loud enough for the Sunday men to hear, brushing back a lock of hair errant from her braid. “How are you today?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“I’m glad to see you here. It makes an otherwise gloomy day much brighter.”

A few affectionate kisses were planted on her forehead, his moustache prickling her skin like cactus needles.

“I love you so much,” he professed. “Stand with me and H.W. where you belong, won’t you?”

Taking her gently by the arm, he positioned her on his side opposite H.W. before she could answer then, replicating her crowning moment during the spudding-in ceremony, clasped her hand into his in the manner of a doting father. A discernible boiling wrath wrangled with Eli beneath his collected provincial façade. Playing the devil’s advocate, further provocation was incited when she stepped closer against Daniel purely out of spite.

“My friends,” Eli’s charismatic elocution cut above the murmur of the crowd, efficiently ceasing it. “I wish we could be gathered today under better circumstances but we are not. Last night a tragic accident sent Brother Joe Gundha home to be with our Lord. Mr. Plainview,” the two men traded barbed glares, “has asked me to deliver a eulogy with some kind words in Joe’s memory. And so I shall. I am told that he was a ‘man of considerable faith’. Yet he did not attend our services at the Church of the Third Revelation as he should have. It is with my most sorrowful regret that I was unable to spend more time with him because he could not find the time to spend with us despite his faith. He was welcome at our church. But he was a slave forced to forsake our Lord in favor of _another_ God, a slick black God residing suitably beneath our feet.”

The muscles of Daniel’s hand tightened although his grip on Mary kept an unvarying light pressure. He itched to knock Eli off the pedestal he sat on for using the last valediction for a hapless man – one of _his_ men - as grounds to transform a grave into a battlefield. She felt that insinuation pulse throughout his body and knew that everyone else did too.

“Let this accident be a cautionary reminder that we cannot neglect our duties to the Lord,” the obnoxious tirade continued. “The afterlife placement of our souls is an individual responsibility that we cannot afford to neglect, for if we do, then we will be cast into everlasting fire. I can guarantee you that there is no worse place in existence than one without God. There will come a day when blackness will rain down upon us and we must then take extra measures to keep ourselves as pure as snow. We cannot follow Brother Gundha’s example and let this infernal blackness contaminate us. We must remain strong and resist it. Too many have already sold their souls to it. Those who have not strayed must continue to stand strong. Those who have must break free and seek salvation in the _One True_ God. We cannot afford to be lukewarm. The Devil’s furnace is waiting to roast those who don’t stand with God. Whether or not Brother Gundha will find eternal peace in His infinite mercy I cannot say. It is not for me to decide. Our God is forgiving and perhaps can dismiss his trespasses. I’m sure He will. Even so, let’s not forget the sacrifice Brother Gundha made to bring this matter to our attention and spare the rest of us from his fate.”

Eli’s imprecations ended and he crouched to take a handful of earth, turned his back to the crowd and tossed the dirt on the coffin residing in its eternal resting place.

“Rest in peace, my Brother,” he mumbled almost to himself.

Daniel growled low in his throat, his jaw clenched tight. With pointed efficiency, Eli’s cantankerous speech summarized all of his derogatory assessments and drew the all-or-nothing lines across the field: choose either Daniel’s oil black God or Eli’s Bible black God. Ambivalence was unacceptable and perilous. A clear holy war had been waged and she was helpless to do anything other than wait and hope that Daniel’s God extinguished the reign of Eli’s.

A few days after the memorial service, more bad luck occurred at the well. A piece of the drill pipe snapped off nine hundred feet below the surface and the men needed to execute a process called fishing to salvage what broke off. Fletcher explained the procedure to her and she soaked up the information like a sponge, genuinely fascinated with the men’s work. Odd, she thought, that the tough, masculine men in Daniel’s crew never underestimated her for being a vacuous female like father and Eli did but instead took time to actually teach her things. She loved them immeasurably for the benefit of their doubt and the chance to prove how smart she was. For that, they were immediately counted as members of her adopted family.

Weeks plodded by and the men still could not locate the damaged piece, postponing the drilling indefinitely. The dilatory problem united Eli and father in unbearable gloating, voicing their opinion behind Daniel’s back to everyone and anyone who would listen and those who wouldn’t. Things were going awry because of the discarded blessing, they asserted, and thanks to several of the oil man’s greatly exaggerated fallacies pointed out by Eli. Had Daniel’s faith been strong and his word good then the work would’ve been running effortlessly. Later that night he took it upon himself to visit with Daniel who was busy helping the men fish. She knew that her poor father figure was getting an earful about how his weak, sacrilegious faith was his failure and if he would just share Eli’s convictions things would resolve for the better. A bad taste had been left in Daniel’s mouth after the funeral that the oil tycoon was eager to spit out. Father would at last give him the excuse he needed to do just that.

This conversation between father and Daniel went unheard by Mary because she was in bed by the late hour in which it took place. What was said was laid out to her in great detail beforehand in a discussion father had with Eli and mother during supper. He would no doubt repeat the scolding invective to Daniel word for word, Mary knew from experience. Father was unused to speaking to people he could not control and Daniel was not a malleable child. The abrasive prospector wouldn’t welcome the unsolicited input. Sleep was easy for her in knowing that father would be put in _his_ place for once.

The next day father was uncharacteristically quiet. Even while Eli rambled incessantly about Daniel’s streak of misfortune, all father mentioned was that the men were back at work after finding the broken end last night. The news shut Eli up and new dastardly plots busied his mind. A tickle of laughter rose up inside Mary who swallowed her milk hard to keep it down. Then and since father furtively retracted from the epic war, owing to Daniel’s successful intimidation. Good, thought Mary. Now he knew how it felt.


	5. V. The Sins of the Father

**V. The Sins of the Father**

All things happen for a reason. One needs no God of any kind to believe that philosophical adage. Just as Eli’s God of the Sky wrested authority from Daniel’s God of the Ground by converting more congregation members from among the roughnecks, the God Below poised for reprisal. Perhaps it had been Eli’s inflammatory eulogy and oracular missive that evoked it, but Daniel’s black infernal God awakened with providential violence later that afternoon.

When the momentous event happened Mary missed it because she was in the hills with Ruth and the goats. Normalcy rapidly dissolved into hellish chaos. The ground was wrong beneath their feet and, with lifetimes accustomed to the unpredictable Californian terrain, they prepared themselves for another earthquake. Maniacal shouts from the men in the distance reached them before blackness spouted from the top of the derrick’s framework. The dumbfounded sisters were agape, watching the great spray rain down in fulfilment of Eli’s overt prophecy, anointing the devout Sunday farm with its bursting, glossy ejaculation.

“Looks like the well’s finally come in,” sighed Ruth.

“Everything’s going to get dirty,” Mary declared, watching black droplets carried by the wind splatter at her feet.

“Yeah. Tell your boyfriend thanks for the extra work.”

The sisters traded looks of amusement and irritation respectively and the elder humorously shoved the younger.

“He’s _not_ my _boyfriend_ ,” Mary persisted.

The younger girl turned back to take another look at the spurting derrick when the nefarious emission erupted into a torching column of fire. Gasping in shock, she stumbled and toppled backwards across the ground.

“What’s the matter, you silly goose?” Ruth asked.

Mary pointed to the inferno and when Ruth turned to see for herself she couldn’t help but to take the Lord’s name in vain. Scalding downdrafts from the pillar of fire smothered them even where they stood, putting tears in their gaping eyes and sweat on their singed brows.

“Is it _supposed_ to do that?” wondered Mary rhetorically, standing again.

“I don’t think so.”

Ruth noticed Mary’s nervous fidgeting effort to defy the need to race home, watch the events unfold and check the welfare of the boy she assumed was her sister’s love interest.

“Go,” she urged. “See if he’s all right.”

The younger girl’s hasty reckless rush to the fields had her nearly tripping as she rounded the top of the hill and stumbled over its other side. Below waited a bedlam of men playing their parts in regaining control of the enraged oil God. Her distraught eyes roved the field, seeking out first Daniel then H.W., but if the father was there she could not discern him apart from the other oil-soaked men. The one thing that _was_ clear was the absence of H.W.’s notably smaller form.

Conscious of the peril that she would place herself into by entering the epicenter, she stopped short and watched, awestruck. She was totally helpless and she hated it. At the very least she wanted to dash in, locate H.W. and make certain that he was fine yet the rashness would not fare well amid the disorder. She was never more afraid, not even during her first days around Daniel or when father beat her.

Terror for her adopted family avalanched over her, crushing her with the worst things imaginable. True, this was their livelihood and they were experienced in handling these matters, but accidents caused dramatic changes in a fraction of seconds. The recent mishap that killed Joe Gundha screamed at her with the voice of a banshee’s death warning. How skilled had Joe been? How many years had he worked in the fields before his untimely death? Was he a veteran who met his demise by one trivial mistake? Was he a roustabout green to his trade and just knew no better? Anything could happen to even the most seasoned roughneck and neither of the Plainview males was beyond harm’s reach. Were they as resilient in the face of trouble as she?

Hot gusts of wind irritated her eyes with the voluminous black smoke that obscured the sky and altered the prosaic repetition she cursed before Daniel’s arrival. To her, it was more supporting evidence of his angelic identity, come to change things with not even a clear blue sky exempt from his remarkable reach. Euphoria clutched her when she thought she saw her cherished father figure in the foray but was disappointed by uncertainty because everything and everyone, saturated in black, blended as one. Her compulsion to run out on the cacophonous field to inquire the whereabouts of the Plainviews conflicted with immobilization and rationale that the men had plenty to worry about without her getting in their way. In the end, she stayed put as a submissive observer.

The fire’s life burned long after the sun died with no reprieve in sight. It seemed that Daniel’s drill had tapped into the deepest bowels of Hell and showed no sign of lessening its fury. Lolling at the goat corral, Mary’s morbid fascination never left the chaotic inferno. Ruth returned from the pastures with the animals and paused beside her younger sister, watching with her for a few moments.

“Did you go down?” she asked.

“No way!”

“Did you see H.W.?”

“He’s not down there.” Silence interrupted their chat while they stared in amazement at the hysteric scene still playing out from across the foot of the hill. “Ruth? What if he got hurt?”

Despite her maddening worry, Mary had the sense to not mention a specific name, preserving Ruth’s belief that H.W. was the one to whom she referred. Comforting denial was what she wanted any way.

“I’m sure he’s fine, Mary. Don’t worry. Mr. Plainview knows how to handle things.”

“The fire is really close to our house.”

“Yeah.”

“What are we going to do? What if our house burns down?”

“Mr. Plainview will have to build us a new one. He built that road leading to Eli’s church and he isn’t even a member. If he was that generous to Eli then he’ll do right by us. He wouldn’t leave us to sleep out in the desert. Especially not _you_. He favors you an awful lot. Good thing, too, since he’ll be your future father-in-law.”

“Stop it, will you? He will _not_ be my future father-in-law.”

“ _Sure_ he won’t. Let’s go. It’s getting dark. Even though we’ve got _that_ to light our way,” she gestured to the tower of hellfire spitting from its subterranean recesses, “we need to get home before dark. Father won’t approve if we’re late.”

The girls half-heartedly meandered back to the ranch, spellbound eyes hypnotized by the blazing derrick along the entire way.

“Father won’t hit us anymore,” Mary proclaimed. “Mr. Plainview is an angel. He’ll protect us.”

Ruth looked at her quizzically.

“You’re so _strange_ , Mary. I think you should become a writer.”

Sleep wasn’t easy for Mary with the hazardous conflagration burning intensely outside her bedroom window, sending eerie shadows to chase each other across the walls. Those shadows made Eli’s suppertime conviction that Daniel had tapped into Hell to set free his demonic minions upon Little Boston more plausible. The shadows _looked_ like demons, twisting and contorting into fantastic shapes. She bargained hard with God for her sweet guardian to be left without a scratch by the licking flames and wished he was with her now, holding her in his arms and lulling her to sleep, his great gossamer wings unfolded and securely blanketed around her in declaration that he was there.

_Some day he’ll do that for me. Some day he’ll let me sleep in his arms and nothing will hurt me ever again!_

How selfish it was of her to dream that scenario with his current predicament! Should he be injured or killed, her one chance at freedom would be forever lost. What would happen then? Would life resume as if he was still alive or would the others pack and leave? There was Fletcher, who knew the work both physical and paper, and made it unlikely that their business would be abandoned. Then there was H.W., who she assumed would own everything pending any regrettable occurrence to Daniel, even if things had to be run by Fletcher until the boy was old enough to own and run the business himself. Mary did not know how she could continue a life deprived of her angel. Once upon a time her life was devoid of him, it was only a brief month ago when it was, and now it was inconceivable to think of life without him.

When she rubbed her eyes to clear away the lingering sting of smoke, Mary forfeited tormented consciousness to tranquil unconsciousness. At least that was what she had hoped for. The terrible thoughts could not be exclusively banished to reality but stained her dreams with nocuous images of her beloved drowning in oceans of ebony sludge, reaching out begging her for help. But she was too small to pull him up on her own. Nobody else was around and he struggled, disappearing beneath the slippery stygian tides to resurface and fight for escape again. The harder he fought, the faster he vanished until at last he sank and never came back up. She cried and beseeched for his return but he was lost within the inky pool.

Awakening with a jump, she quickly realized it was not because of her dream but the thunderous explosion that boomed outside. Ruth was likewise disturbed by the cataclysm and both sisters made a frenetic bound to the window to find out what was happening, struggling with the entanglement of their bed clothes. The derrick over the eponymous Mary’s Well Number One was reduced to smoldering rubble, systematically snuffing out the precarious tower of hell.

“I _told_ you not to worry so much,” grated Ruth. “They know what they’re doing.”

“Somebody could still be hurt.”

“Well, the fire’s out. Go and ask.”

It was already Mary’s intention to do so and, because of that decision, breakfast could not end quickly enough. Nearly choking on her wolfed down food, mother advised her to eat slower or suffer indigestion or worse. By this time her high-strung emotions morphed into an entity that possessed her, had uncompromised ownership of her until, worked to an ebullient climax, she burst from her chair and out the door. Father and Eli observed her with suspicion but it went disregarded. Her objective was to reach the Plainview cottage to check if they were safe and for the moment all else meant nothing. Liberation from father’s tyranny was given by Daniel’s vigilant guardian eye. Governed by her need to know what happened yesterday, she excused herself then bolted from the table and out the door, leaving behind a bewildered family to watch her retreating back.

Outside, the rancid stink of oil pervaded the air, wrinkling her nose in aversion. Splattered drops of the slick goo peppered the ground as far as the eye could see. It would take forever to clean if it ever was at all. The closer she got to the cottage, the more spare the droplets became, a clear indication of which direction the wind had been blowing. The fever of frightening probability sickened her thoughts with every step, nearly crippling her.

Approaching the cottage, she encountered Fletcher smoking a cigarette on the porch. He saw her coming and greeted her in a genial tone. Although his words were cheerful, his expression bared the mournful fatigue of an insomniac.

“Morning,” she returned. “Is Mr. Plainview all right?”

Fletcher smiled wearily at her inquest.

“He’s fine,” was the answer and she felt stupid for doubting the prospector’s expertise. “But H.W. got hurt.”

Akin to barbed wire binding around the internal organs of her chest, the news paralyzed her. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe because doing so made everything hurt. While she had been concerned about Daniel’s health, her forgetfulness of H.W. consumed her with incorrigible guilt.

“He _did_?” she cried. “What happened?!”

“The explosion knocked him off the derrick. He’s lost his hearing.”

“Will he be all right?”

“Nobody knows. It’s too soon to tell. He’s inside if you would like to see him.”

“Yes, please. Thank you.”

Fletcher stepped aside and the girl crossed the threshold and beyond the open door. A few steps inside the murky, stale room, she stopped when she located the father and son. Lying on a blanket stretched out over the floor, both reclining figures were drenched with oil, the son locked in the father’s secure embrace from behind. It was a touching moment as much as it was a terrifying one. Her initial thought was that they were asleep since neither moved. Then Daniel’s eyes opened in a severe contrast of white within the black mess on his face.

“Hello, Mary,” he addressed faintly so as to not wake the boy. “H.W. can’t play with you today. He’s been hurt.”

“Is he going to be OK?”

Daniel sat up, groaning from the stiffness in his joints, and shook his head glumly.

“I don’t know if he’ll be all right,” he confessed. “I can’t tell you anything at this point. I don’t know anything. But you’re welcome to stay for a while with me, if you like.”

The room was thick with the man’s sorrow. He ascribed all blame on himself for what transpired and had it not been for the coat of oil he wore, she would have lightened his spirits with a loving hug. Wiping the mess from his eyes, he stood with a somnolent groan and gazed upon her affectionately.

“Would you like some goat’s milk while you wait?”

“I should leave…”

“No, please. You’re welcome to stay. It would be a great comfort to me if you stayed. Now how about that milk?”

Caving in, she nodded, not wishing to further distress him.

He limped to the table where there was a fresh bottle of milk and poured her a glass. She complied with his gesture to join him there, glad to alleviate his misery however possible. Discontent riddled her mind when, in a feat of magical deftness, he produced the infamous flask from out of nowhere and swallowed its devil liquid. Imitating, she drank some of the milk.

“He’ll be happy that you came,” he told her. “He’s very fond of you. I can see that you enjoy his company as well. That’s good. You don’t have any other children your own age to play with other than H.W., do you?”

“No. There are others but I wasn’t allowed to play with them. I wasn’t allowed to play at all but father made H.W. an exception. I didn’t mind too much though. The others are so immature.”

The declaration got Daniel to chuckle and profess, “That’s my sweet little girl! Far ahead of her time!”

Inspired that she was victorious in lifting his mood, she added, “But I come here for another reason too.”

Daniel smiled gently.

“Oh? What reason is that?”

“I like _you_.”

His once anguished expression switched to a radiant one.

“You do, do you? That’s nice. I like you, too. I’d like to keep you here with H.W. and me but I expect it to warrant more trouble than either of us need. At least for the moment. But it doesn’t matter. You already belong to me, don’t you?” When there was no response he pressed for an answer. “Don’t you, Mary?”

“Yes.”

He cracked another benevolent smile for the young girl.

“That’s right,” he stated softly. “You’re as much my daughter as H.W. is my son. It doesn’t matter where you came from or who you reside with. Home is where the heart is and your heart is always here, isn’t it?”

“Always,” she consigned, earning another smile, his teeth ivory in the ebon mess.

“I’m glad. H.W. will be happy to hear it too. Except…he _can’t_ hear. Not any more. The explosion took away his hearing. Accidents happen but not to my son. For the first time in my life I don’t know what to do. I’m….lost. It isn’t a feeling I’m used to. I _always_ know what to do.”

The once iron-strong Daniel crumbled, downtrodden by a very dark and ominous chasm of despair. The heartbreaking affair made an unsettling wreck of him that was difficult to witness. Out of his ethereal element, her guardian angel was not indestructible. Mortal hardships compromised him, reduced him to unfamiliar vulnerability, left him emotionally decimated, just as a mortal body was frail and subject to injury, and in her generated selfish wonder about how it would affect his mission to guard her. Angels were not meant to become besieged with earthly heartaches and were not immune to them. Ultimately, his exposure to humanity’s agonies would harden his tender emotions but that wasn’t likely as long as the child he loved was suffering. What saddened Mary most was that it hadn’t been a blow from an enemy that enfeebled the measure of her angel but that he’d succumbed to a humane love for a child, a companion, an extension of himself. Venom had been injected directly into his soul and made him wither in the sickness.

The remnants of the flask’s contents were emptied down his throat and, for a split second, she swore a tear washed the grime on his face but it was only perspiration. Easy perception showed that he was not a man who wore his emotions on the outside, turning the moment of bonding between them bittersweet. Rising from the chair, she placed a hand on his dirty shoulder, offering as much solace as she was able and he instinctively placed his hand over hers. They remained statue-still for a length of time before he removed her hand from his person.

“Let me clean up,” he muttered to her. “Work still must be tended to. You can stay as long as you like. I know he would be pleased if he woke up to see you here.”

She watched him leave the cabin, grabbing the pail next to the door as he went, on his way to draw water from the well. It was then that she checked the small supine form alone on the floor that had not stirred from the fetal position it was curled in. Compassion for her playmate flooded out to him through her moist gaze. What would happen to him now? How was he going to get by without the gift of sound? Despite his reserve in his ability to do so, she was confident that Daniel would figure out a solution. He _had_ to. Like Ruth said, Daniel always knew what to do.

Another option occurred to her: the self-proclaimed holy vessel Eli. He was a healer, a claim she believed a fraudulent con that he would hide with ridicule for Daniel but it was a chance for H.W. and an opportunity for Eli to prove his gift authentic. If he was a real healer he could restore the child’s hearing and do so without reluctance, were he not simply riding high on his own hype. The death of Joe Gundha compounded with H.W.’s accident and the time wasted fishing made the well a more cursed object than it already had been without Eli’s blessing…and the townspeople voiced that collective opinion in gossipy mutters. Torn between capitalism and religion, Little Boston’s instinctual reversion back to its roots rose a universal and progressive uprising against Daniel, these accidents were the justification. Everything worked in Eli’s favor, producing a bigger smug braggart out of him. Her task would be near impossible to achieve. The adversity that marred any relationship Eli might have had with the father illogically and unjustifiably tainted his actions toward the son. The hate for the innocent boy by proxy made Mary loathe her brother exponentially and further drove the differentiated wedge between the siblings’ idea of who God was. No right was given by God to Eli to condemn H.W. for whatever sins he imagined Daniel to have committed. This would be her petition for her brother’s help.

As much as she thought her brother false, an ancient tie of blood obliged her to believe there was a scintilla of truth in Eli’s Biblical abilities. Like it or not, when medical science failed he was the one person with whom H.W. had a possibility of getting well. Maybe he could be persuaded to do the right thing and help the boy. Maybe not. Whatever the outcome, she needed to try. Should the imminent refusal transpire, then it was yet one thing more to blacken his soul. After the unsubtle verbal assault against Daniel at Joe Gundha’s interment, appealing to either man about the other was futile. Neither one would listen. Her only hope was to mention the blameless H.W.’s need and pinpoint that the boy hadn’t done anything wrong.

After all that he had done for her, she owed it to Daniel to at least try. If it was love that felled the angel then it was love that would raise him up again. Forget its effect on others in Little Boston, including her family! Her personal life was drastically improved by his arrival and nobody could rob her of that. Not even her charlatan brother.

“I’ll be back,” she assured H.W., stubbornly believing that he could at least feel her presence even in slumber. “Things will get better for you, too. I promise.”

Eli was found overseeing the church renovations, instructing the carpenters in his customary patronizing tone so that they flashed vitriolic glares at him when his back was turned. She inconspicuously sat on the back pew, legs swinging beneath as she waited unobtrusively for him to notice her.

“Mary,” he addressed when he saw her. “What are you doing here? Have you come to confess your sins to the Lord?”

“I haven’t sinned,” was her rebuttal.

A wry smirk in the same insulting way that he’d spoken to the carpenters flashed at her.

“We both know that is a lie,” he wrongfully corrected her.

“Then what have I done?”

“Mary, Mary, Mary. How selective your memory is.” He sat beside her. “You prefer the Plainviews over your own family. You take their side in every argument.”

“They’re my friends.”

Eli scoffed. “So it seems. They are _your_ friends. But _we_ are your family and they are far from friending the Sunday family as a whole.”

“You haven’t extended an olive branch yourself, Eli.”

“I have tried but it is impossible. I am limited with what I can do. Daniel is a backslider and has to save himself. I can merely guide him but he must initiate by coming to me. He has to want it. What good would his repentance be if it isn’t done willingly and naturally? People tend to not be what they are forced to be. I shudder to think of the other members of his Church of the World if he epitomizes them. They must all be backsliders whose singular concern is the almighty dollar. The only God Daniel worships is the black devil he takes out of the ground.”

“That isn’t true, Eli. He’s a good man. You just don’t see it.” _Because he outsmarts you_ is what she really wanted to say but didn’t.

“I’m not surprised by your defense of him. He coddles you and you must think yourself a princess in the spoils he lavishes you with.”

Infuriated by his amplified distaste for the Plainviews, she interjected, “H.W. got hurt in the accident last night. He can’t hear any more.”

The gratification splashed across Eli’s boyish face was uncouth and aged him. She had tricked herself into not expecting to see it but now that she did she admitted her foolishness in hoping for a different outcome. Was there such a deficiency in Eli’s character that he would take pleasure in a child’s injury? _Hope for the best but expect the worst!_ Instead of pity for the young victim, the minister’s face reflected a haughty, inflated ego and a detachment that was less to be desired. The simpering bastard actually believed the accident was a warranted favor from his God.

“First the fatal accident with Joe Gundha,” Eli reviewed, “now our Lord God has struck another blow against this vile, demonic backslider. And on the one person he prizes most in the world. The sins of the father shall be handed down upon the son. The boy is a degenerate who got what he deserved and his father is an unfit parent with no business seeding a child let alone raising one. God has decreed H.W.’s strife for his enthusiasm to follow in his father’s footsteps. I do not feel an ounce of pity for him.”

“But Eli, you’re _supposed_ to _forgive_ and H.W. hasn’t done anything to you,” she implored. “He’s just a boy. Can’t you help him? You can _heal_ him. Daniel will be so grateful that he would do _anything_ for you. I know he would! _Please_ , Eli. H.W. needs you to lay hands on him.”

“I’ll lay my hands on him all right but it shall be to exact God’s judgement. I see through you, Mary. I suspect that your request has more to do with the father than it has with the son. Daniel has brought this abundant misfortune on himself with his duplicitous ways. He says he worships one God yet he serves another. Skepticism will be his downfall. His indifference is blasphemous, for our God is a jealous God who has no others before Him. The Plainviews mock Him and God continues to put them on bended knee. The price he’s already paid is steep. What more must happen before he submits? Unchecked pride is the worst of the deadly sins. The Lord twists the arm of fate to wring the tears from Daniel’s proud eyes, just to break him into submission to the _One True_ God. This is a test for Daniel, Mary. He _must_ learn humility. I cannot do anything to help him. I will only advise you to stand down from his side before you get hurt too.”

“How can you refuse to help, Eli? If you are a _true_ healer then it’s your _responsibility_ to help H.W. regardless of how you feel about him or Daniel. God gave you a gift and you _can’t_ refuse to help someone in need!”

Eli glared at her in a doomsayer’s warning which changed into an odd warmth, obversely chilling her bones.

“It is God’s will. I am helpless to prevent it.”

Deciding the argument futile, Mary left the church, fuming over her brother’s heartless gloating. Eli complained about Daniel’s unconventionality yet he was not beyond the prospector’s alleged sinister concepts himself. The young minister’s sole objective was procuring the money owed to the church and he would do anything to get it. One descriptive word of Eli repeated itself in her mind: phoney.

The rest of Mary’s day prioritized watching over H.W. while Fletcher stood guard outside and Daniel flitted back and forth from the drilling site to the cottage. With Fletcher’s aid, Daniel wrestled the petulant boy into a bath, successfully cleaning and dressing him in fresh long johns, actions that delineated the truth behind the oil man’s parental capability. Love for H.W. steered him into worried delirium that refuted Eli’s contaminated hearsay. What did Eli know about being a father? Nothing, and he had no credentials to criticize a man who _was_ a father. The whole time she was in Daniel’s company she pretended that Eli’s gloating schadenfreude had never been spoken, for her brother’s sake as much as for the oil man’s.

H.W. was restive in his illness and Mary’s existence brought no disparity. During one visitation, Daniel administered a glass of goat’s milk laced with whiskey as his son’s medicine but it only accomplished knocking the boy unconscious. It was a quick fix remedy that at least kept H.W. where Daniel knew he would stay and provide the father with less worry.

“You’ll still take care of him, won’t you, sweet Mary?” Daniel solicited as he carried H.W. to bed and covered him with the blankets. “I know you will because you’re a good girl and you care about him. He’s more of a brother to you than that ass Eli will ever be.”

Mary smiled and sat vigilant in a chair he had moved to the foot of the bed for her. He kissed her forehead, as was his custom, then returned to the field.

She would stay for as long as necessary with new implicit understanding of the appeal H.W. felt in striving to make his father happy. She wanted to follow his example, to make Daniel proud of her.

Hence, this routine was re-enacted for the next few days. A doctor made a house call to check the inner chambers of H.W.’s ears but Mary was not around for it. Daniel updated her that the examination had been a calamity with H.W. fighting hard against them every second.

“Why does he fight if you’re trying to help him?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Mary. Maybe he’s taking after his father. A chip off the old block, so to speak.”

Wretched misery devastated the otherwise strong persona before her and she couldn’t resist launching herself into his arms, clutching him tight as if letting go would equal losing him. If faith truly moved mountains then love could get blood out of stones. Daniel reciprocated the embrace fiercely and despite, his perfected effort to conceal all emotion, he sniffled very faintly against her. This time she _knew_ she felt the wetness of a tear not her own trickle down her neck.

“You’re a big help, Mary,” he muttered. “It does me good to have you around. You’re a great comfort. Thank you so much.”

He held her dearly for a long while before pulling away, smoothing her hair back and kissing her tenderly on the forehead. Caught in the moment, she did something forward and uncharacteristic when she reached out and touched his roughened face. The tears she felt seconds ago were already dried before she could actually witness them; nevertheless, she didn’t have to see or be told about them. Their story was clear: he needed her and she was going to be there for him. At all costs.


	6. VI. A Slip from Grace

**VI. A Slip from Grace**

Word circulated fast about H.W.’s accident and Eli took full advantage to connect it and Daniel’s misconduct with the curse of the first well brought about by his rebuffed blessing. The slander polished his sterling image brighter while he spewed toxin from the new pulpit built on the profits arranged upon sale of the Sunday ranch for construction of the abomination he outspokenly damned. Each mention of evil or sin made in his slanderous preaching referenced back to Daniel. Any slight offense or petty fault the prospector exhibited was picked at with zealous glee by the preacher who flapped and waved his arms in motions that, paired with his black clothing, were more corvine than human. He was a malicious raven come to peck at the flesh of a luckless boy and his despairing father.

Mary held her tongue against the urge to shout a demand for him to shut his mouth because her adopted family had endured insurmountable hardship without sending the oil man into another protective rampage. In the pews with her natural family, she bore Eli’s ridiculous defamation with a forced smile and clandestine eye rolls, badgered by Rose Monahan who wanted more notes passed to the reverend. The only saving grace was her pending freedom to traverse to the Plainviews afterward. She attended the Church of the Third Revelation because she was _forced_ to but she visited the Plainview cottage because she _wanted_ to and it was always worth the wait. Nothing good ever came without a payment in something bad.

In waiting out the hours, her mind already was at the cottage, not watching H.W., who shamefully wasn’t in the picture at all. She was with Daniel, alone, on his lap and in his arms, those warm arms that were an impregnable fort against life’s brutality. Her eyes shut, her imagination working so hard that she swore she felt the embrace in reality only it was across her shoulders rather than around her waist. Instead of affection, a sharp cuff to her ear along with an order from father to pay attention jolted her out of her reverie. Twenty minutes later it didn’t matter because she was on her way to the cottage, where she wanted to be.

There were no improvements in H.W.’s condition but the boy’s attitude was more unruly and defiant. Daniel put him on a steady regimen of the goat’s milk and whiskey concoction to keep him pacified and under control, arguing that as much as he loved H.W. he could not handle both his business and an infirm son all at once. His unprofitable attempts at communicating with his progeny, the endless frustration he was rewarded with day in, day out, were difficult for her to watch. His one reprieve was that her visitations enabled him to tend to the business without excessive worry since someone was with the boy. The treacherous strain on Daniel inspired him to resort to complete immersion in whiskey and work, his single profitable venture, for a needed escape. The girl marveled at her father figure’s remarkable ability to keep things together under the extreme duress of what had to be one of the most difficult trials in his life. New resultant wells were brought in apart from the first one, much to Eli’s dismay. Irate because Daniel still owed the $5,000 funding to the church, the money was as much an obsession for Eli as Daniel was to Mary. It was the only thing he talked about, mentioning it whenever the opportunity arose and creating an opportunity when it didn’t. Anyone with common sense knew that the prophet was a bull chasing red, heedless of the sword behind the matador’s cape. But telling him that was asking for trouble so she let it be.

Little Boston became a seething witch’s cauldron ready to boil over, credited to the game between preacher and oil tycoon. Eli’s relentless castigating words were rocks tactically arranged over Daniel’s chest to crush him but H.W.’s predicament overturned some of the town’s popular negative opinion of the prospector regardless of how hard Eli tried to send him over the edge. Sight of his weakened prey made Eli a facetious jackal and he applied pressure without mercy. It was his civic responsibility, he insisted, that he exposed Daniel for the hell-bound miscreant that he was. And eventually the weight of Eli’s words was heavy, albeit his conscience was empty. The compliant acolytes of the Church of the Third Revelation backed Eli’s muckraking, resting at night with clear conscience that they were aids in winning God’s war. Those who attended the church but had no close affiliation with Eli alike with the nonconformists who cared nothing at all for religion considered Eli’s name good and believed his verbal assassination of Daniel without trying to disentangle the hidden purpose behind the oil man’s erratic, unsociable behavior. Their blind acceptance of Eli’s word without question was deplorable. They knew not the private hell Daniel was trapped in but they were keen to stoke its punishing fires to burn him.

The day the tension culminated, she was keeping vigil over H.W. when the boy grew implacable in his sleep. Moaning, he cried for his father, tossing and turning hysterically and when his eyes opened he went into a violent fit that couldn’t be soothed. There was no use: he could not hear her and, in his ire, possessed greater strength. Single-handed because Fletcher, trusting H.W. to her care since there was no past incident, had abandoned his post outside for the drilling site earlier that afternoon, she had no choice but to risk leaving her friend so she could find help.

“I’ll get your father!” she tried to tell the boy thrashing wildly on the bed. “Stay here! I’ll get him!”

Traversing over the rocky terrain and dodging through a grove of trees, thriving grass and large rocks, she darted post-haste at breakneck speed to the drilling field in search of Daniel. Here the fetid odor of oil, closely resembling the stench of an outhouse, strengthened in potency more than anywhere else and she gagged. Below a pit acted as a reservoir for oil draining from the wells, pooling it into a shiny tenebrous lake of molasses…and on its opposite side Eli approached, heading directly for the same group of men she was on her way to meet. Halting to duck behind a tree, Mary realized that the Gods were on the warpath again and she sought exclusion from it. An incontestable bad moment had been chosen to harass Daniel; the oil man’s collective turmoil waited to be unleashed at any given opportunity as it was. _Here_ was the opportunity as the captious glare he seared through Eli went unheeded. She could not decide if she should admire her brother’s fortitude or curse his stupidity. A loaded gun with the safety off, Daniel was fine to handle with utmost care until his trigger point was pressed. Once pressure was added, the instigator got what he asked for. Eli opted to apply the foolish, rash pressure. Again.

He stopped in front of Daniel and mumbled something indistinct but Mary didn’t need to hear the words. Whatever they were they combusted Daniel’s volatile temper like gunpowder licked by flame and the piercing crack of the oil man’s open hand meeting the side of her brother’s face resounded to her hiding place. Eli’s appalled expression was classic and it was committed to her memory with great satisfaction. However, Daniel was not finished and delivered not only a second debilitating blow that knocked Eli completely to the ground but a third when he tried to stand again. Whereas Eli’s had been inaudible, Daniel’s anguished voice was prevalent and reached her ears with crystal clarity:

“Aren’t you a healer?! And a vessel for the Holy Spirit?!”

Hatred and rage unadulterated disfigured Daniel’s handsome features until he looked like someone else, someone she did not know. It wasn’t far from the truth either. This _was_ a Daniel she did not know. For a split second she feared for Eli’s life. Crazed, Daniel hovered over her brother’s cowering form in a threatening and more domineering than usual stance, his face reddened and eyes bulged.

“When are you coming over and make my son hear again?!” yelled Daniel, practically frothing at the mouth. “Can’t you _do_ that?!”

“If you had let me bless the well,” countered Eli unwisely in a high pitched squeal, “this wouldn’t have happened!”

A harder dispensed slap landed Eli on his hands and knees. Mary flinched, wanting to intercept but was afraid for herself if she did. On any other day Daniel was innocuous toward her but in his present state he was not in his right mind and could easily make a mistake. The bond of blood she possessed but abhorred swelled her eyes with tears despite knowing her brother rightfully deserved the cruel manhandling.

“Daniel,” caterwauled Eli, “you _shouldn’t_ have done that!”

The bleeding young man received another unrestrained smack in answer. Eli crawled away, a worm in the dust, groveling in a voice typical of the opposite of his sex, Daniel in pursuit, kicking him with his massive boot as he tried to escape the onslaught.

“You owe the Church of the Third Revelation $5,000 as part of the arrangement we made!”

Mary’s eyes gaped with unabashed horror as her mercurial angel usurped Eli by either fistfuls of hair or collar and dragged him kicking and screaming to a large mud puddle. Eli fought with all of his might but Daniel sat on his chest to pin him down, incapacitating him in the filth and nearly drowning him in it. An unexpected lump of emotion rose in her throat at witnessing this timely affray and her tears burst free. Daniel was supposed to be her _protector_ , a benign champion, not a maniacal berserker! She wanted Eli _penalized_ , not _killed_! He was still her brother and no amount of abuse he gave would ever dispel that fact. It was quite clear that Daniel was no savior after all but a villain wearing a different mask. She hated him and she hated that she was tricked into believing he was good despite the copious dreadful things she heard about him.

The contention lasted only a good solid minute yet it stretched on forever until Daniel rose off of his impotent prey and walked off, leaving Eli flat on his back in the pit and wearing his sin on the outside just as plainly as his rival did. Honestly thinking him dead, Mary strained to check for signs of life in her brother, finding them when he wallowed in the mud of his defeat, struggling to get up. Then her betrayed eyes rested on Daniel who’d just reached the audience of men…and his gaze met hers. His expression instantly morphed from satisfied superiority to one of bottomless regret, not regret for what he had done but for that he’d been caught doing it.

“Mary!” he called, his voice softened again. “Mary, wait!”

But she didn’t. Visceral self-preservation instinct sent the mortified girl into a daunted run like a jack rabbit out of the copse of trees where she had been hiding and he was the bloodthirsty coyote giving earnest chase. He shouted after her, pleading for her to stop so he could explain, but she couldn’t stop running. Until the exertion of the chase was too much and he staggered and hit the ground. Things changed abruptly when she heard him cuss after the sound of impact. She halted and whirled around, seeing him struggle to get back on his feet. On bended knee, he cradled his bad leg, which she guessed was the one he’d put his weight on in the fall. Sympathy for the demonic fiend was refreshed and, though her heart softened, terror still wore on her face.

“Don’t run away from me, my sweet. Why are you running from me?” he asked. He knew why and he knew that she was aware of his knowledge.

Refusing him an answer, she stepped backwards when he reached out for her. It was impossible to unsee what he did to her brother and what she saw when she looked at him now was the irrevocable image of Eli drowning in mud. Every bit of it hurt. A crash like glass shattering resounded in her ears only it was the sound of her destroyed hope.

“You’re not upset about Eli, are you? You shouldn’t be. Not after everything he’s done to you. You know he got what was coming to him.”

Daniel at last stood on wobbly legs.

“He’s _still_ my brother,” she reminded, voice unsteady and saturated with emotion.

“No. He’s nothing to you any more. Your rightful place is with H.W. and me.”

He tried to take her hand but she abstained, retracting as if his grasp would induce death itself.

“So you’re afraid of me now? Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of, I won’t hurt _you_. You know me better than that.”

Dispute that she _thought_ she knew him better wanted to be screamed at him but the words were formless on her tongue. Nor would the angelic image ever be what it once was. Everything she built in him altered, this moment etched in the back of her mind forever. An innocence had been lost.

“Mary, please. Eli had it coming. You know in your heart that I’m right. You know that I would never lay a hand against you and that I love you. Be a good girl. Come to me. Come to your daddy, my sweet.”

Rather than trying to grab her again, he let her come to him freely, keeping his hand extended in kindness the way one would do with a beaten animal. Careful hesitation ruled her because she desired to trust and love him wholly but the brutality she inadvertently viewed had exposed an insensate monster inside him that could be released as easily as the compassionate father figure she idolized. With more time and cajoling, he finally won her over and she propelled into his arms with such force that he nearly toppled backwards.

“That’s it,” cooed Daniel in her ear as he enfolded her tightly against him. “That’s a girl. I’m so sorry you saw that. You weren’t meant to see it.”

Body quaking, she sobbed against his chest. Heaven help her, he was irresistible and she meant to stay with him for the rest of her life in one way or another!

“You have no reason to be afraid of me,” he insisted, his voice mellifluous and soothing. “None whatsoever. I’m sorry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

For several long minutes he cradled her, waiting for her nerves to calm with a father’s infinite patience. When her composure was gathered and the ephemeral fear gone, he looked at her with the gleam of genuine remorse in his eyes.

“Feel better?”

She shrugged.

“Why were you down here any way?” Daniel’s voice switched from consoling amiability to parental sternness. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching over H.W.?”

New purpose caused Mary’s heart to pound hard once more. _H.W.!_ In stumbling upon Ell’s demeaning battering, she had forgotten why she sought Daniel in the first place.

“Oh no! _H.W.!_ He _needs_ you! He’s going _crazy_!””

There was no greater emergency for Daniel than the welfare of his son. Nothing else was required for him to grasp her hand and head toward the cottage like an arrow, suddenly adroit despite his fall and more agile than expected with his deterrent leg and her straggling, significantly shorter gait. By the time they reached home, he was sweating and ragged of breath in the fraught effort to arrive much sooner.

The irrational H.W., who was expected to be in hysterics, was reconciled, curled up and asleep on the floor with his blankets strewn about and a few things upturned or out of place. Daniel’s terror expired as he gazed upon the stationary form of his son.

“He must’ve tired himself back out,” he spoke his thought aloud. “Look at the mess he made.”

“I’ll clean it up,” she volunteered.

He smiled warmly at her. “Thank you, Mary. Your help is always appreciated.”

She granted him a wide berth as he hoisted H.W. into his arms and settled him back into bed with tender care, restoring a fraction of her lost confidence in him. H.W. stirred and moaned when he felt the indent of Daniel’s body as he sat at the foot of the bed and reached over to smooth the boy’s hair from his sweaty brow. Then he motioned for Mary to join, which she did without the prior faltering.

“You don’t have to be here if you’d rather not be,” he told her. “You can stay away for as long as you need to come to your senses. You’re welcome here at any time, day or night, because you are a part of this family. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want you to ever do anything you don’t feel comfortable doing so take your time. I won’t force you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you over being afraid of me?”

She nodded, ignoring the lingering fear of his virulent unpredictability. Mary was not thoroughly ready to disclaim the new insight based on her first hand account. It was like having an irrational yet entrenched fear of someone who hurt her in a bad dream.

“Good,” he murmured softly, “because you have nothing to fear in me.”

The smile he produced was sentimental when he caressed her face and kissed her cheek. The affectionate gestures helped her feel better and leant his oath plausibility. Before he returned to the fields, he provided a light repast of fruit and porridge for her then another overcompensating kiss on the cheek.

The sense of being at home in the Plainview homestead gradually returned.

Twilight became denser and the return home was bedevilled by subdued dread of the pending conflict from Eli, but he was nowhere to be found when she arrived, remaining absent even while the table was set for supper. For this she was ecstatic and busied herself beyond the usual to alleviate the apparent unnecessary tension she created for herself. Supper passed with few spoken words when Eli finally sauntered in, hackles raised and still caked in the head-to-toe muddiness of his distasteful timing. He resembled a clay golem in appearance and in the stiff, aloof manner that he marched to his chair at the foot of the table.

Everyone tried their best to ignore the emasculated fanatic and the ill-tempered force his company descended upon the house. He glowered at father through slitted predatory eyes but Abel did not acknowledge the vexation. Mother and Ruth’s faces were taut and remote, feigning disinterest in the inevitable skirmish when in fact it was the most interesting thing ever to happen to the family. Mary, who had closer proximity to father than with Eli, swore a growl emitted from her brother’s throat before he spoke.

“You are a stupid man, Abel,” he hissed with vehemence. “You’ve let someone come in here and walk all over us.”

The female trio braced themselves yet remained detached and deaf to the chastisement.

“You let him in and do his work here,” Eli fomented, “and you are a stupid man for what we could have had.”

The wearisome father was appalled not only by his own foolhardiness and realization that his son’s indictments were right but because the last thing he wanted was confrontation about his blind ignorance to Daniel Plainview’s treachery. The old man wanted to lick his wounds in peace.

“I followed His word, Eli. I tried.”

Mary flinched when father admitted that he trusted that this man Plainview was a prophet who hailed from the Church of the World, come to rescue them from poverty just like she believed he was an angel sent from Signal Hill by Paul. Everyone had their own ideas about what Daniel was and in the end it appeared that they had universally been duped by a smooth talking politician. No complaint could be made on Mary’s part since either way she acquired something more precious than an angelic guardian in him: a father figure, however flawed he may have been. The chauvinistic Sunday men clashed with a reputable enemy who possessed fortitude of steel and shared not her sentiments. But father’s mea culpa about a lack of common sense was an unprecedented miracle. So shocked were the women that they set aside their forks and listened intently to the truculent opposition.

“You didn’t do _anything_ but sit down,” bemoaned Eli. “You’re lazy and you’re stupid. Do you think God is going to save you for being stupid? He doesn’t save _stupid_ people, Abel.”

A brief, troubling pause stifled the room before, in one swift motion, Eli rose from his chair, knocking it over as he leaped atop the table and lurched across its surface to oust father from where he sat. A black raven cawing the old man’s doom, Eli swooped down upon father, sending him crashing backwards to the floor with his unfettered son on top of him, screaming: “ _I will tear you apart for what you’ve done, you_ stupid _man!_ ” Mary, Ruth and mother flew up with equal swiftness and, to the young girl’s expected dissatisfaction, were ushered into the next room, out of the way of _men’s business_. Once the door separated them from the men, she grimaced and shook her head in frustration. She wanted to have within eyesight what was within tempting earshot. Ruth was content in her removal from the fray altogether and mother went back to monitor the men. The youngest Sunday could not comprehend how her sister restrained the curiosity that ran feral in her.

“ _How_ did he come here?!” jeered Eli, the Devil in his voice. “Do you really know? _I_ know!”

“Son!” beseeched father. “Don’t _do_ this, _please_!”

“Be quiet!” rebutted Eli. “Shut your mouth, Abel! It was your _stupid_ son! It was _Paul_ who told him to come here! I _know_ it!”

Paul’s name wafted its way to Mary’s ears, quickening her pulse. Was there missed correspondence from her estranged brother? Had it been addressed to her and Eli’s interference prevented her from receiving it? How else would Eli know that Paul sent Daniel? Was he aware that the prospector was sent to protect her? She listened intently to learn more.

“He went to him,” Eli bellowed in highhanded lecture, “and he said, ‘My stupid weak father will give away his lots. Go and take them.’ And you _let_ it happen! A stupid father to a stupid son!”

Mary turned away from the vociferous quarrel when Ruth nudged her and suggested that she come to bed. Reluctant, she adjourned from the altercation and followed her sister into the bedroom. They changed into their pajamas, skipped their prayers and slipped inconspicuously into their beds.

The endless clamor from the other room was blocked out of her ears by dreamy preoccupation. The peculiar stench of oil and the mechanical whine of the drill snaked in from beyond the window and she wondered if she would ever be able to acclimate to either. The smell functioned jointly as a bane and a comfort, unearthing fond memories of Daniel upon whose skin it was fragrant and good. Snuggling into her blankets against the night’s chill, her thoughts depicted his warm, oil-scented flesh pressed against hers in a protective embrace as he nestled against her ear, murmuring a lullaby to obstruct the bad sounds.

The racket of the busy drill made itself useful then, too, blacking out the tussle outside the door and earning its right to be compared with what was happening within the Sunday walls. Her mind wandered from subject to subject, landing again on the male members of her family. Eli bullying father was abuse too and she did not condone to the abuse of anyone, not even the perpetrators of her personal abuse. While a majority of those who grew up in a violent home repeated the vicious circle in one way or another, she was a rare gem in the reverse affect violence had on her. Violence for whatever reason was unjustifiable in her eyes. An all too familiar personal experience, it was forever disturbing that her angel was equally capable of it.

But were angels not violent creatures, created to execute violent acts? Stories of angelic conduct she had spent her entire life hearing about were recalled: Michael battled Lucifer and drove Adam and Eve from Eden, angels levelled Gomorrah and reduced Lot’s wife to a pillar of salt, angels were responsible for the destruction of the thousands-strong Assyrian army and annihilated enemy tribes who pursued the Jews in their exodus. Angels, in hindsight, were not saintly creatures but instead were ones that kept their wing tips dipped in the blood of mankind. They did God’s dirty work, things that the Almighty wouldn’t bother soiling His own hands with. After her observation of Daniel’s unhinged actions, she had to reassess the nature of such fierce creatures, and the outright carnage she may have doomed the town to by calling one down. Proof supporting the adage to be careful what you wish for was the irony: she had longed for Daniel to force-feed Eli a taste of his own wicked medicine yet was sympathetic for the ambitious preacher when he finally received his just desserts. Now there was an ensuing, unstoppable domino effect rippling through the Sunday family tree.

A blood-related noose strangled her heart with no other option but to side with her disillusioned brother as he fumed in anger, debased before the people who practically worshipped him. How the congregation or the other Sundays would feel hereafter was critical to Eli’s livelihood. When all one had were the dreams of a better future through that livelihood then it was a thing too valuable to lose. Plus wounded pride would never let this humiliation go unavenged.

A residual awkwardness was brought to the breakfast table as the silent family ate with seldom a fleeting glance at each other except when passing things that were requested. Eli’s chair was notably vacant again in his newly habitual absence since the ranch had exchanged owners and this time remained so for the entire meal. Experience sourced from a lifetime of knowing him enabled Mary to predict that Eli’s conceit would hole him up from sight for a few days. Eli’s vicious nitpicking accused the oil man of wheedling the land from its rightful owners without fair recompense and that father, like everyone who had leased their land to Daniel, easily surrendered their most valuable asset without wit or foresight. Eli’s curse was he _had_ known ahead but everyone had been too greedy to listen where he had been too greedy to not. Injured pride was a near mortal blow to him. Pride was deadly indeed.

But the hope of sunnier, Eli-free times was too good to be true, as the girl discovered during her daily trek to the Plainview cottage. Midway en route, at the isolated spot between where neither household was in sight, a freshly washed Eli sprang out of the grass and trees to barricade her path, startling and terrifying her to the extent of putting her life before eyes.

“Off to see the backsliders so soon?” he sneered in a tetchy way that implied risk in answering.

“Leave me alone, Eli,” she demanded, lacing her words with vehemence. Facial bruises left in the wake of Daniel’s molestation were coincidentally not unlike the ones Daniel had seen on _her_ face. “I’m not bothering you.”

“I know you saw what he did to me yesterday. You saw and you did nothing to prevent it.”

“What could _I_ do? I’m just a kid.”

How great was it that the twin’s usual effrontery had returned!

“He loves you. He’s taken you under his wing and favors you above everyone else. He dotes on you like you’re his own daughter. How lucky you are to escape the devil’s cruelty. What will you do when he is crushed by the Lord’s fist? Do you think that the Church of the Third Revelation will welcome you back into its fold after you’ve rejected your blood kin for a hellion and his black army?”

Mary’s frustration seethed. “What did you say to him to ask for what you got?”

A consummate coward who could not risk vengeance against Daniel face to face like a man and fearing exposure of his secret nature to light for Little Boston, he raised an open hand to take it out on his little sister where his malice went unseen. Gasping, she flinched, and it was enough to certify that he continued to wield some power. When the blow did not come and Eli’s hand rested back at his side, outrage poured from her.

“If you hit me, he’ll know,” she warned. “And he won’t let you get away with it.”

“He bullied me. He told me that he was going to bury me underground. Do you believe that excusable? Do you _want_ to see your brother, your own flesh and blood, exterminated like a common cockroach?”

“I don’t know, Eli. He’s my friend. You always tell others about being washed in the blood of the Lamb. Well now you’ve been washed in the mud of Daniel Plainview. Doesn’t feel very nice when you don’t want it, does it?”

Shoving passed her unreconstructed sibling, she resumed her walk to the cottage. The insubordination did not deter Eli’s aim to drive his point through her heart like a stake.

“He is _not_ your father, Mary!” the dejected young man shouted after her. “That _boy_ is _not_ your brother! _I_ am! I _am_ your brother and you are obliged to keep your loyalties to _me_!”

Snubbing him with unsurpassable pleasure, she kept an obstinate pace until he either gave up and went away or at least shut his mouth. She promised no such loyalties to an artificial person.

By the time she reached the cottage, she was breathless with fright to the point of asthmatic that she prevented Eli from seeing. Paranoid of bumping into him for a second round, her eyes roved the countryside and, not minding where she was walking, crashed directly into Daniel’s spindly legs. A startled whimper escaped her throat but he had a hand on her shoulder, stabilizing her before she refrained.

“Mary!” he exclaimed, surprised. “What’s wrong? You’re as pale as a ghost.”

The handsome, rugged face of the man she adored was a sight for sore eyes and she shook her head.

“I saw a wildcat,” she fibbed, glancing over her shoulder to check if she had been chased.

One to not shirk his guardianship duties, however voluntary for a child not his own, and set on edge by her lie, Daniel scanned the premises for the fabricated cat, drawing her tightly against him with a defensive swipe of his arm.

“I don’t see one,” he assured softly, squinting in the already bright sun to better see. Completing his surveillance and at ease again, he asked, “Did you eat anything yet?”

“I had breakfast with my family.”

A disconcerting growl escaped his throat, imitating that old lion again, this time defending its young.

“H.W. is asleep,” he informed her. “I would be ever so grateful if you sat with me for a minute or two, all right?”

“OK.”

He led her by the hand to the couple of chairs out on the porch and gestured for her to sit. After she chose the one just outside the opened door, he took his seat next to her. Captivated as always, she watched him light the pipe she had not been aware he’d held in his hand and puff away on it. Her eyes closed and she breathed in the rich scent of the smoke, wondering why it wasn’t as offensive as the cigarettes that sometimes took its place. During this brief intermission, he inhaled a few long drags, tangled in thought while he stared into the desert with only the crackling of the ancient chair beneath him audible. Perhaps he was searching for the wildcat but she did not think so. Other matters troubled him, read in the lines of his face.

At length, he cleared his throat and, not looking at her, confided with defeated glumness, “I don’t know what to do with H.W. I don’t want to send my son away. I don’t know what I would do without him.”

She stared at her feet, hooked together and swinging like a pendulum beneath the chair. Quietly waiting for his next sentence, she watched him smoke and thought of how the habit befit him much better than the flask kept filled with rank liquid in his breast or back pocket.

“You have _me_ ,” she stated simply, testing her waters with him.

His eyes shifted from the arid landscape before him to her freckled face. In the second prolonged recess she forced herself to return his intense gaze, still determined to verify that she could handle it and finding it easier this time.

“So I do,” he consented then grinned. “Thank you, Mary Sunday.”

Smiling, she corrected, “Mary _Plainview_.”

Daniel could not suppress a light chuckle for her adjustment. His smile broadened in Cheshire cat fashion and was as sunny as the California horizon.

“H.W. will be glad to hear it,” he told her. “I think he’s smitten by you.”

“Not H.W.,” she returned sombrely, besotted by her hero.

A twinkle was in his eyes that she had never seen before. Enlivened from head to toe by it, her feet swung higher, faster in immature adoration. Rising from the chair, he administered a tender kiss to each of her cheeks then to her forehead, she trying to not wince at the sharp grazing of his bristly moustache. The smell of the sweet tobacco clung to his clothing and she detected the dirt beneath the nails of his unwashed hands. Emptying the pipe out by tapping it against the sole of his boot heel, he straightened with a stretch that cracked his back before recommencing his kingly stature.

“I need to get to work now,” he informed. “I’ll be back to check on you later.”

Mary’s heart fluttered as fast as a hummingbird’s wings as she watched him walk away.


	7. VII. A New Acquisition

**VII. A New Acquisition**

The bouts of H.W.’s erratic, inconsolable behavior waned that afternoon after he awakened to her at his bedside. Snapping out of his troublesome delirium and near catatonic state, he roused with little or no memory of his obstinacy over the passed week. The poor memory was likely credited to Daniel’s consistency in keeping him drunk on the goat’s milk and whiskey tonic but nevertheless Mary was overjoyed to have her companion returned to her at any capacity. The last few days of nothing but sitting and waiting for the highlight of father arriving to check on son were repeats of pre-Plainview boredom.

When the boy’s eyes flickered open she was the first thing he saw and he gifted her with a sweet smile. His new perception of her was a godsend. Not remembering his deafness, she asked if he was hungry. His blank expression jogged her memory and she pointed to her open mouth. Immediate understanding prompted a shake of his head then his gaze drifted to the window. Tapping his shoulder to regain his attention, she gestured to herself then to him then to the door. He nodded and crawled from the bed.

Wanderlust revelry carried them to the hills, staying far from the drilling site in his unwillingness to revisit the location where his unspeakable suffering originated. Spending the day apart from everyone except each other, they ventured high into the hills and far into the desert until they reached the coastline. Isolation would do them good, considered Mary, as they watched the waves roll onto the beach in blissful, frothy peace.

Sneaking a glimpse of her playmate, she recalled what his father told her: H.W. liked her. _Liked_ like, not just liked to play with. Encouraged, she sidled closer to the boy but was unnoticed until her head fell upon his shoulder. For several minutes they remained in that pose as he tossed stones into the tide, but before long he grew weary and removed his shoes, coercing her to follow his example. Rolling the legs of his trousers up to mid-shin, he grabbed her hand and led her toward the water. In perfect imitation of a courting couple, they ambled a few yards before he squatted down to scoop an armful of water, splattering her with it. Laughing in girlish glee, she returned the whimsical gesture and the splashing game commenced until both were drenched to the bone.

For the rest of the day their enjoyment revolved around the water and lazing on the beach to dry while the sun bid temporary farewell in the ruddy west in the day’s final moments. On their trip back, Mary was pleased when H.W. again secured her hand into his until the cottage came into sight. He was brought to an abrupt standstill and, not paying attention, she ran straight into him. Following his line of sight to the cottage, she saw Daniel standing outside with a smaller, mousey looking fellow.

“There they are!” the oil man exclaimed jovially. “Come here, don’t just stand there. Join us.”

H.W. trudged forward to take his habitual place at his father’s side, his footsteps cautionary, and Mary trailed close behind, eyes never leaving Daniel’s companion.

“This is Henry,” he introduced. “Henry is my brother. He’ll be staying with us for a while. He’s come a long way to meet us. Henry, this is H.W. and the pretty lady is Mary.”

The stranger greeted the children with a toothy grin and scratchy hello. Mary didn’t know what to think of the new man. He gave her the uneasy feeling of a new parolee who has trouble going straight on the outside. No prior mention of any estranged family members was ever made by the oil man. Was this Henry really Daniel’s brother or a new scoundrel intending to cash in on his recent wealth?

Daniel was a prudential man, rapier sharp in the ways of the world and business. A newcomer would not be permitted to rob him of what he fought to have, Mary trusted. If a clandestine scheme was afoot then she would leave the matter in his hands without uttering a word, for his years and experience rendered him far more judicious than she.

“Mary,” addressed her father figure, “would you be ever so kind as to leave us to our business? We must get acquainted. You’re welcome to join us again tomorrow if you like.”

Hurt by the sudden exclusion, Mary was slighted. If she was considered part of the family then why was she being turned away? Mother’s typical excuse rang as clear as a bell: _men’s business_ , and she hated him for it. Incapable of disobeying his wishes, she mumbled good night sooner than she’d planned, leaving Daniel to whatever diabolical _men’s_ business he needed to tend to.

Embarked on the trip home, Eli’s earlier ambush bubbled up from a corner of her memory and she kept a shrewd scrutiny in case he repeated the act. If he did, she’d be motivated to run straight back to the Plainviews and request their help. It would serve Eli right to be mauled by the almighty Daniel Plainview for a second time.

However, her irascible brother was nowhere in sight until she approached the drilling field where he and a handful of his female congregation members were harassing a group of roughnecks who were marked with the white cloth crosses his parishioners wore to indicate which God of Little Boston owned their souls. A significant population of the oil workers had converted; but dedicated to their arduous toils for Daniel’s material God of enterprise, they snatched little time to worship Eli’s version of the Christian God. Rumor was that some of the men sympathized heavily with Eli but that hearsay was never proven and too delicate a topic to voice if they did. On his side or not, Eli welcomed them zealously and their pay checks from Daniel were expediently cashed into his pockets as tithes to the church.

The cycle was observed by her with unbridled repulsion with knowledge that he was siphoning all he could get to recover the loss suffered because of father’s hasty $6 an acre sale of the ranch. His boyish face was mended, healed by the time of day, and, as usual, he was dressed impeccably in a stunning new suit, courtesy of the roughnecks’ long hours of work. The contrast of this holy visage with Daniel’s image made the girl decide it was, in essence, an unholy mockery of her father figure. Here was Eli, standing as rigid as a soldier during a drill, head high and hands before him with fingers interlaced over his stomach. Young and unblemished without a crease in his clothing or a perspiration stain on his shirt, which was miraculous in the ungodly heat, fingernails manicured, face baby-skin smooth, not so much as a hair out of place, he was a perfect representative for his cause: a spiritual salesman glorifying himself through God. Ambition was fierce fire in him, although he manipulated everyone into thinking it was to benefit the Lord and his occupation called for him to never dirty the flesh of his hands, though the hands of his spirit were as black as tar. Eli hid his sins from the world and from those who did not know him with an immaculate visage. If cleanliness was next to Godliness then Eli was the epitome of his Lord.

The one person who saw through this chicanery was the man who was Eli’s antithesis in every possible aspect. If the aforementioned cleanliness was an attribute of godliness, then what was the merit of hands soiled by tough hands-on work? Was it Satanic, in converse nature? Also well-dressed in expensive suits, Daniel was not intimidated by the hard manual labor that yielded his success and was unable to ever completely wash the grime from his hands. He was older, wiser, his handsome face often coarse from a lack of grooming and his hard, lithe body gritty from several unwashed days on end emitting the combined signature odors of sweat, smoke, alcohol and oil. At any given time, _some_ part of him, usually his hands, was _always_ dirty and it seeped into his inner being too as if he was born dirty. An abysmal man to most on a personal level, his louche business practices cheated people out of what they had, kept it as his own then flaunted to the former owners how he profited off of their loss. Despite Eli’s veritable habit of doing the same thing, he was silent in voice but less subtle in his action of showing off his material profits. Soiled body and soul, Daniel wore the stains of his oily sins on the outside for the entire world to see and made no atonement for anything.

Choosing the lesser of two evils, Mary of course sided with her father figure. At least people knew what he was when they set eyes upon him. He was a roaring lion in his prime whereas Eli was a serpent under the guise of a lamb desperate to hold on to whatever power he had left. She walked passed the group, knowing that from the corner of his eye Eli watched her with interest. Immune to anything he said or did, for the first time in her life she felt that _he_ was beneath _her_.

Relentless worry for the Plainviews’ welfare plagued Mary that night, horrid thoughts beating against her like Egypt’s locusts. Already a surfeit of bad dealing was underway and apprehension that the mysterious stranger’s well-timed appearance signaled trouble refused to leave her. Dawn’s arrival stretched into eternity and only came after her eyes closed for what she believed to be a brief stint of time. Mother vented protest at the table when she wolfed down breakfast then fled the house without excusing herself. First father was puzzled by her behavior but within seconds realized that it was best to keep his mouth shut.

On this occasion Eli was nowhere to be found, attributed to the residual lowness from his very public humiliation. Nor did he pop out in front of her to impede her way. The finesse of a coward was unfailing. It was just as well since she was going to where she was loved and wanted and nothing could stop her, however belligerent.

By daily visiting the Plainview cottage, she always expected to find the early-to-rise master of the house outside smoking either his pipe or a cigarette while watching the sunrise and ideally waiting for her. This morning was a disturbing exception. When she did not see his gangly form posted outside the threshold, she nearly died of fright. Standing at the door, she peeked through the dusty window and immediately found Daniel’s fully dressed body lying prone across the floor. Unable to see anyone else in the obscure gloom, the worst was assumed and she wildly pounded on the door, shouting his name at the top of her lungs, it not occurring to her in her manic state that if Daniel’s alleged brother _was_ guilty of murder then her clamor would no doubt make her his next victim.

Movement rustled inside but her eyes brimmed with too many tears to clarify the dark shape. The door was thrown wide open but it was the murderer himself who stood between her and the crime scene. Screaming, she teetered backwards off the porch, nearly falling on her butt in effort to flee. Awakened by the vibration the commotion produced, H.W. sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes as a befuddled Henry stepped outside after her, inquiring what was wrong. Discovering his friend’s terror, H.W. rushed passed the guest to quiet her.

“You _killed_ him!” Mary incriminated, illustrating with an accusatory point beyond them to Daniel’s unresponsive figure. “ _You_ killed _him_!”

With his arm clutched in her vise grip, H.W. did not need to hear a single syllable to comprehend what was happening. Henry was at a loss for a course of action and watched with the dazed countenance of one roused from sleep and cast into the midst of pandemonium as H.W. calmed the girl. Gesturing for her to follow, he intended to lead her inside but she would not budge, shaking her head briskly. He validated her security with a smile then tugged her along with him, her widened eyes scarcely leaving Henry when she staggered passed him and into the cottage. H.W. brought her to his father’s body and pointed at his chest, showing her that he was breathing.

Understanding suddenly struck the confused Henry about why the girl’s reaction was one of such prodigious horror. He re-entered the cottage, distraught to pardon himself and make amends. With a hand on her shoulder, he questioned, “You think I _killed_ Daniel?! No, no, _no_ , young lady! He’s my _brother!_ I couldn’t do _that!_ He’s just asleep. Had a little too much to drink last night and apparently sleeps like the dead.”

He leaned down and jostled Daniel’s reposed form, calling the name of the heavily asleep oil man who moved not a muscle.

“Daniel, _wake up!_ ” he shouted. “Mary Sunday is here!”

Mention of her name helped; a sudden great sigh expelled from his heaving chest and he rolled half way over; his eyes, swollen from sleep, opened as the thinnest of lines to see her.

“Mary?” he called, his voice gruff and hoarse. “What happened? Did your father or jackass brother touch you again? I’ll kill them if they did.”

Mary believed him wholly. Tempted to lie that one of them had, she thought better of manipulating him. Crying wolf would get her nowhere if she truly needed his defense one day.

“No,” she wept with reprieve, hurdling herself at him when he sat up, his unbuttoned shirt opened and hair unkempt. “I thought he _killed_ you!”

Embracing her back, he made the inquest, “You thought _who_ killed me?”

“Evidently _me_ ,” Henry elucidated, bemused. “You should take this as a sign that you sleep too soundly. You scared the day lights out of the little lady.”

“Mary, my sweet Mary,” Daniel soothed, stroking her back as he rocked her. “Nobody can hurt me. I’m not going anywhere.”

His knack for persuasion was not one she was immune to. There was truth in what he said, just like there was truth in her belonging to him. Like her, he was a paradigm of resiliency and was unassailable, especially while they were together.

He solemnly kissed her cheek and there was the verifying smell of whiskey that fouled his breath overnight accompanying the permanently affixed stench of oil when he pressed her against his bared, hairy chest, wetted by the streams of tears streaking her face. Locked in the fierce embrace for several long minutes, they left Henry and H.W. to stand by with nothing to do but fidget in awkwardness.

“Let me go now, my sweet Mary,” he muttered after an epoch of time elapsed. “I have a lot of important work to do today.” He pried free and braced her with his strong hands. “Are you going to be all right?”

She nodded and a swipe of his calloused thumb erased her tears.

“Go and play with H.W.,” he instructed. “Henry and I have business today that will require most of our time.”

The girl nodded and Daniel rose from the floor, stamping the circulation back into the left half of his body. H.W. claimed her hand with his, earning a warm smile of approval from the patriarch.

“We’ll see you both later,” he assured Mary before an eager H.W. yanked her out of the cottage.

A fortnight passed and two auspicious bonds swiftly developed. Henry barely left his gregarious elder brother’s side, determined to quickly absorb a lifetime’s worth of Daniel’s successes, so that it seemed they had fused into one person. Impossible it was to think of one and not the other. The dedicated right-hand man and long-term business associate Daniel shared in Fletcher was traded for one in brotherhood with his newfound sibling. Among the select elite who Daniel trusted, Fletcher was bewildered by the seditious attachment that strained the friendship between the business partners. Fletcher, who had always joined Daniel on business trips, was now ousted by Henry’s companionship, left behind to tend the fields and mind the children.

“This is a family business,” Daniel reminded him one evening while the five of them ate supper in the mess hall. “It’s only right that Henry learns how to run things.”

A harsh thing wanted to be said about how he had been the one there from the start and was therefore more valuable than a know nothing Johnny-come-lately brother, but not a single word was uttered from Fletcher’s tightly clenched jaw. Deprived of familial ties, he had no choice but to let his long-time friend fail if need be. It was Daniel’s business to do with what he pleased, even if it was an explicit mistake. Arguing with him would be detrimental to any future interests and to his livelihood.

To Fletcher’s dismay his segregation was not exclusive to business matters. Henry replaced him in personal affairs as well. Notwithstanding the hemorrhage in the relationship with his business partner, a dramatic change in Daniel’s attitude occurred. He was happier, perhaps owed more to having a close blood relation than a new friend to ease his daily pressures. But long periods of time with him enabled Mary to soon detect things were amiss. Beneath the cheery decorum, she sensed a diabolical plot mulling within Daniel’s mind. She had known him longer than Henry had and, doubtless, this was Fletcher’s worry too. His knowledge of Daniel’s modus operandi spanned the course of several years and, though he was not privy to the scheme, his intuition was certainly fine-tuned to it.

The same feeling resonated throughout the town. The atmosphere thickened as Mary imagined it must’ve been like running through a blanket of heavy wet snow, and only Henry seemed ignorant of it. Unless he assumed that his strangeness to the parts was the reason for it, he verbally wrote it off as stress over H.W.’s impairment. The self-reassured unfamiliarity was appropriate but those who knew Daniel better couldn’t write it off as that being the sole source of his irritation.

Even Eli’s agitation exceeded as if he too sensed something worse was on the rise. The dissension was a static electricity that sizzled and snapped, standing their hair on end but his ordained gospel warned against abiding by every whim of Plainview avarice. The enemy was doubled in number with Henry’s presence, increasing the young preacher’s vulnerability. Wisely iterating his callous reproof behind Daniel’s back, he still exchanged scathing glares with his rival in passing. Mary thought Eli was as dumb as a goat if he believed that the roughnecks who had joined the church kept their employer in the dark about his sermon tirades. They were God-fearing men and cared about their afterlife, but often to man the here and now supersedes the hereafter so simultaneously they feared Daniel more, since he signed the pay checks that paid for their earthly needs and wants. Thus, Eli lost their loyalties where land was cheap but souls were cheaper.

The second relationship that flourished was the one between H.W. and Mary. Often they were caught secretively holding hands while walking along the beach or through the fields, huddled together somewhere in discretion or H.W. would sneak her hand into his beneath the table during meals. In the back of her mind the remarks Ruth had teased her with were a nagging sore muscle. Her original intention was to hide it, holding with tight fist to her childish fantasy of being with the father rather than the son, but H.W. bonded to her with affection that transcended the sibling tie Daniel wanted of them. Once when all of this was noticed, Daniel cracked a light-hearted jest referencing them. It succeeded in embarrassing Mary who shied from the boy, snatched her hand out of his and scampered a foot away from him. Although she sustained a profound love for Daniel, she gradually came to terms that it was best to abandon the hope of having the father and concentrate on her burgeoning love for the son.

The innocent romance widened the already profuse rift between her and Eli more drastically than ever. He lurked about, hoping to catch the young pair together alone and chastise them about their new interest in each other. For all of his patient efforts to accomplish this goal, someone always came along and foiled him. One day, she and H.W. foolishly played too close to the church and their luck ran out when their jovial commotion summoned the preacher from within. His cold eyes pinpointed H.W. in specific as if he was the scourge of Little Boston.

“Mary,” he addressed reprehensibly, eyes trained severely on the boy he abhorred, “you are betraying your family by being with him. _He’s_ not anything to you. You are _my_ sister, not _his_. _I_ _am_ your true brother, _not him_. Do you wish to betray your _real_ brother so quickly in favor of this little hellion?”

“He’s more to me than you’ve ever been,” Mary snipped, steadfast. “You’ve never been my brother, Eli.”

“I have _always_ been your brother. If you persist acceding to their every whim you will be excommunicated and you will go to Hell. Is that what you want, Mary? To go to Hell? Your soul will burn for your insol—“

“Eli!”

The sudden stentorian voice startled both Mary and her brother but neither had the identical effect at seeing Daniel emerge from out of the hot desert, stroll nonchalantly into his adversary’s territory and divide the space between the young pair and the sanctimonious evangelist. The reciprocated glares were laced with mutual consuming hostility and she knew that letting this act play out without her participation would be smart.

“Daniel,” Eli returned, retaining his disrupted serenity. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

If one could actually choke on a lie Eli would have been dead on the spot.

“I need to ask a favor of your mother on your behalf,” Daniel disclosed succinctly.

“We will be happy to assist you however we can, Daniel.”

“I have business to conduct in town tonight and Henry is coming with me so that I can show him how things are done. We’re a family-run company so it’s only right that my brother be there. That means H.W. will need looking after. I was wondering if she would be able to care for him while we are out.”

In the interim, H.W. sought the succoring long legs of his father, imitating a toddler rather than a boy his correct age. Mary joined him in a crucial move that she deepened her brother’s fury. She nurtured the protective consanguineous instinct of blood she did not own but was dangerous to Eli.

“Yes, Daniel, I’m sure mother would be delighted to watch your son for the night,” Eli replaced what he really wanted to say with.

“It won’t be for the whole night, just a few short hours. I won’t impose on her time and generosity by having H.W. overstay his welcome.”

“H.W. is always welcome at the Sunday ranch. Having him won’t be an imposition.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure it won’t be. I’ll be indebted to your mother for her hospitality.”

Daniel’s astringent glower reflected his pensive suspicion. The wizened older man saw straight through his naïve foe’s transparent cant. He edged away, steering the children to follow with hands upon their backs. Just when Mary expected Eli to be pardoned this one time, Daniel stopped and turned back to confront him. He knew what kind of a man Eli was and was having none of his two-faced tendencies.

“Oh, and Eli. Unless you want to wallow in your quagmire again you might want to be careful what you say around my son. _He_ might not be able to hear you but _I_ can.”

“I assure you, Daniel, I don’t know what you mean…”

“You know damn well what I mean, Eli, don’t insult my intelligence or you will be buried alive in something worse than mud.”

A patronizing rebuttal was curbed by recollection of the upsetting incident and the men’s bitter conversing stagnated.

“When will we expect your young prodigy?” the jeer was modified with a polite question.

“I’ll bring him by around seven o’ clock.”

Eli gave a curt, obsequious nod, subconsciously paying homage to one he innately knew was superior.

“Very well. Seven it is then. We look forward to having him.”

“Thank you, Eli. Like I said, I will be indebted to her.”

Satisfied, Daniel sauntered away, guiding the children with him by a protective hand upon a shoulder of each one.

H.W.’s promised delivery to the Sunday doorstep was with the earmarked punctuality of an ambitious businessman. Daniel compensated mother with a nominal fee for her time and H.W.’s board, informed her that he’d already been fed, then provided a small bottle of whiskey with instructions that H.W. should be given a half glass mixed with goat’s milk before going to bed. Love-starved, Mary watched the father stoop down and exercise futility when he assured the deaf boy that he would be back later and that he was to behave. Her soul yearned as Daniel gave H.W. a parting kiss then a genial wave to her before returning to Henry who lingered in the night for whatever dastardly business awaited them. Only because of the money did father sit quietly and watch things unfold without his input.

Barely able to contain her thrill at having H.W. spend the night under the Sunday roof, the girl snatched her friend’s hand and led him into the sitting room where she entertained him while mother and Ruth made up a cot in the storage room. When finished, mother directed her to usher the belated H.W. into the back so that the girl too could retire for the night. His hand was reclaimed and Mary followed through with mother’s request, finding Ruth doing last minute preparations to the makeshift bed nestled in a cool, dark corner. Mary gestured for the boy to lie down; he complied with a yawn before Ruth tucked him in. The infernal elixir of goat’s milk and whiskey was administered by mother who made certain he drank until it was gone.

“Good boy,” mother praised, stroking him on the forehead. “Don’t stay up too late, Mary. You need your rest too.”

Then the mood suddenly darkened when Eli slinked into the room. Nothing good was going to come of this visit.

“Might I have a word alone with him?” he requested of the female Sundays.

“Be quick,” mother advised. “It’s a late hour and he was just given his elixir. He’ll be out soon enough.”

“Of that I have no doubt. I’ll be just a moment.”

When mother motioned to escort the girls out of the room, Mary took a headstrong stance, afraid of leaving her vulnerable friend alone with her unsaintly brother. The matriarch objected but Eli insisted that his little sister might stay as it was in her best interest to do so. Conceding to the notion, mother and Ruth left Mary and the Plainview scion to the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The holy vessel crossed the floor, hands arranged piously before him, and frowned at their visitor. Determined to be his father’s son and remain unintimidated, H.W. looked Eli dead in the eye but Eli crossed him in the form of a simple blessing. Looming over the child he softly lectured in a frosty tone: “There is only _one_ father and there is only _one_ son.”

“He _can’t_ hear you,” Mary reminded.

Eli threw daggers at her with his eyes. “ _Yes_ he _can_.”

“Eli, he _can’t_ _hear_ you. He doesn’t...”

“Quiet!” Invading the oil prince’s personal space in distressing proximity, he averred, “You listen to this, _boy_ , because I _know_ you can hear me. Your father has provoked me…and he has provoked God. You should save yourself before it’s too late.”

In combustion of arrogance, Eli skulked from the room, strong in conviction that he had one-upped his nemesis with the badmouthing of his son. She wanted to play her part in returning the care her adopted family gave her. Livid that Eli was an insolent bully to a sick child, Mary planned to tell Daniel the moment a fresh opportunity arose. Payment would be dear for the unwarranted blessing.

Thus persuaded to sit with H.W., she recited stories more to divert herself than him as he drifted away to Nod. His impairment did not ruin his appreciation of her company and she stayed at his side until his eyes closed and did not open any more. A new fear rendered her reluctant to leave: what if Eli snuck back in to exact a fiendish plot against the amenable boy? In the wild, males kill the children of other males and there didn’t seem to be much of a difference in mankind lately. If it occurred in her absence, how could the sleeping deaf boy defend himself? The room was unsafe for H.W. to occupy alone.

Night’s hours ebbed away, the inevitability of her nodding off too threatened her faithful vigil. The last thing anyone needed was more trouble from either Sunday male for her being found lying with _that Plainview boy_ come morning. Yawning and stretching, she sojourned off, entrusting God with H.W.’s wellbeing. She crawled into her own bed with sore, puffy eyes and a determination to remain awake, anxious to fill Daniel in on Eli’s threat so that she could see justice enforced upon the clergyman yet again. Regardless of her valiant battle against the sandman, her aching eyes closed briefly, reaping the consequence of sleep.

In the later hours of the night her body was jolted by an excited electricity when the voice of a returned Daniel pierced her dreams. Anchored by interrupted sleep, her eyes were forced open and met the crack of light trickling into the bedroom. Through that light she strove to catch a fleeting glimpse of her hero but went unsatisfied. All she had was the sound of his voice and it was painfully indicant by his slurred words that he was intoxicated.

“I’d like to thank you for taking care of my son tonight,” he was relaying to mother. “Your kindness is appreciated. Here’s something extra for your trouble and your time.”

“No, Mr. Plainview, I _couldn’t_.”

“Please. I insist.”

“Why don’t you both stay the night? You’re in an unfit condition to find your way back to the cottage in the dark alone with a child. There are wildcats roaming around out there. You’re welcome to stay.”

“Thank you so very much for your generous invitation but I _must_ be on my way. We’ll be fine, Mrs. Sunday, don’t worry. Henry is with us, we won’t be alone.”

The creak of the door meant that Daniel was on his way out, fending off mother’s tenacity for his consent to spend the night under the Sunday roof. But he was too gallant to accept the charity. At the close of the door she heard his voice outside, neither loud and rowdy nor soft and gentle, and resisted the impulse to gaze through the window. Henry responded and, though he sounded worse, comfort was taken in knowing that her beloved adopted father was not alone in the dark desert. Possibly two drunken men had the brains of one who was sober.

The thought eased her back asleep although there was difficulty with repressing her want of tattling Eli’s actions toward H.W. during his stay. Just desserts were due and reason dismantled her trepidation of Daniel after his violence upon the Sunday twin. It _was_ good for acquittal. If Eli had not provoked the tycoon while he was in his weakened, upset state then he would’ve never had a hand raised against him. Hindsight always bears insight.

Tonight Eli’s craven behavior targeted an innocent child, indirectly attacking Daniel through his son because he lacked the courage to confront the real offender. What Eli was too thick to realize was that tampering with Daniel’s intense love not only for H.W. but for children in general, his sole accomplishment was adding fuel to hellfire. If she did not tell Daniel, it was likely that H.W. would find a way to do so. By whatever method, Eli’s fate was grim.

Dawn sun rose on an impatient Mary dying to visit the Plainviews but hesitant to express it after Eli turned up for breakfast. Expedient with chores and eating, her cautionary methods meant to not attract interest from an observant brother who already watched her from the corners of his eyes. The plan was a mute communication between them, his eyes following her when he thought she was not looking back. Chores complete, she burst from the house with a terse good-bye, zenithward to the Plainview cottage. Father shot her a disapproving glare for the waywardness but spoke not against it, understanding her destination. Conversely, Eli didn’t stop scowling though he struggled not to.

Desire to evade unfinished issues with her sibling kept the pace to the cottage brisk, aimed at putting as much distance between herself and her family as possible before Eli chased after her, sending her into accepting Plainview arms. But emptiness awaited her when she reached the cottage without even Daniel, who every morning reliably watched the sun rise while having a smoke, there. Rushing to the window, she thought that perhaps they’d slept late due to their belated hour spent out the night before. H.W. was probably as inebriated as his father had been and she now was aware of how heavy a sleeper Daniel was.

Yet nobody occupied the inside either. The entire cottage and surrounding perimeter were vacant. Convinced still that something was off about Henry, her upset committed her to try the door and it swung open without trouble. One step into the shadowy abode was taken, she timidly calling first for Daniel then for Henry but received an answer from neither. No sign of struggle found, the floor was clean of the telltale redness of blood. In its place was a section where the wood was scorched, revealing that a fire had broken out. The breath she’d imprisoned expelled in an irate sigh. If they were not here then they must have been down at the field because if the fire was death’s culprit then their charred, lifeless bodies would still be in their beds; that they were not was conclusive that they were at least alive.

Turning on her heels, she left the cottage, responsibly shutting the door behind her again then headed to the active field, determined to uncover the secret of the fire. She surveyed the field for any member of her foster family, even if it was the shady Henry, but found none. Unsettled nausea along with speculation that perhaps someone _did_ get injured seized her. They would be working in the field if everything was fine.

For the first time Henry, artificial while blasphemously sitting behind Daniel’s desk, was a welcome sight when she reached the office. With no choice but to question a man she mistrusted, she gathered her nerve, prepared for the worst and entered, reserved but ready to listen to the story.

“Hello, Mary,” Henry greeted, his toothy smile contradicting the dolefull appearance of his worn face. “Good morning to you.”

“Morning,” she returned. Then, without wasting time, struck at the heart of the matter: “What happened at the cabin?”

“That’s right, you go there first thing every morning, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“There was an accident last night,” Henry told her. “H.W. set a fire. We don’t know why; probably because of all the damned whiskey Daniel keeps forcing down his throat. Kid’s as drunk as his father most of the time. I feel sorry for him.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s fine.”

“How about Daniel?”

Henry smiled again and shook his head, daring to ask, “You have a thing for him, don’t you?”

Discomfort shifted her weight.

“No I don’t,” objected she.

Henry chuckled and teased, “Yes you do. You turn red whenever you’re around him, like you turned red just now when you heard his name. Don’t worry, he’s fine. Nobody got hurt.”

“Then where are they?”

The breach of mirth retracted from Henry, bleakness enveloped him again.

“At the train station,” he replied. “Taking care of a private affair. It’s better you ask Daniel about it when he comes back.”

The information subdued her fears for one thing but piqued them for another. Had the father and son made a foray to the train station on business as they often did? Today it was Henry who’d been left behind while H.W. accompanied Daniel, which was odd because ever since the half-brother’s arrival he and Daniel had been inseparable.

“Where’s Mr. Hamilton?” she pursued, unrelenting with the hunt for facts.

“He went with them,” answered Henry simply.

“Oh.” Fletcher’s readmission into Daniel’s transactions intrigued her.

“You can wait here with me if you want. I won’t bite.”

Mary gave a negative shake of her head.

“No, I’ll see how my sister is doing. I’ll come back later.”

“Suit yourself.”

Worries tamed, she quitted the office, wanting alone time at the beach to think, wishing her lost companion was at her side.


	8. VIII. A Woman's Place

**VIII. A Woman's Place**

Late afternoon’s dimming light shadowed the grassy veld of Isabella County before Mary returned to the field where Daniel was hard at work near the drill. It marked the first time she had personally witnessed him performing the hands-on scutwork himself and so centralized on his labors was he that it was plain something was irrefutably wrong. Not daring to disrupt him while he worked off his problems, she patiently perched on the office steps, watching the men toil diligently. Henry no longer presided as a decoy king at the desk, elevating her mood since he wouldn’t nuisance her with conversational attempts or badgering about her infatuation with Daniel.

No trace of H.W. was found anywhere. A hollowness twisted in the pit of her stomach, predicting that, despite Henry’s assertion, some tragedy _must have_ befallen the boy who otherwise would have been present. A disturbing image of a fire-flayed H.W. formed in her mind, sickening her. There was no wonder why Daniel succored himself with hard work to banish the tragic circumstances from his mind.

“My sweet Mary,” his gruff voice addressed, stepping before her and crumbling the horrid ideas. “How are you today?”

Behind his voice was a hidden secret that she disliked.

“Where’s H.W.?” she bluntly questioned.

The sound that Daniel released was a long, piteous blend of sigh and growl, like a tired old lion who didn’t want to be pestered by its young.

“Why don’t you join me for supper and we’ll talk about it?”

She agreed and her hand was enclosed by his much larger one before he escorted her to the mess hall. In the fashion of a true gentleman, he held the door open, letting her enter first. She picked the table where they sat and he ordered a steak for them to share from the cook who’d appeared and disappeared with the suddenness of a rabbit from out of a magician’s hat.

“If I can’t eat supper at home I’ll get hit,” she cautioned.

“They won’t raise their hands to you,” he proclaimed sternly.

One of his infamous feats of sight of hand produced the dreaded flask from his back pocket out of which he took a large gulp.

“You care very much about H.W.,” he began. “That’s good. He adores you. But he’s been beyond our reach since his accident. He’s changed. I can’t help him. I don’t know how. It’s not doing him any good to stay here locked inside himself.”

She waited out another partaking of booze, patient because he would eventually tell what she wanted to know. Then it came and it was bad.

“I had to send him away, Mary. I couldn’t handle his special needs. I had to send him to someone who could, someone more experienced than I am. I had no choice. I have too much to do. He was unmanageable.”

More of the whiskey was downed.

“Did he set the fire?” she inquired.

Daniel rewarded her concern with a smile.

“You’ve heard about that?”

“I went to visit this morning.”

He paused, structuring his next sentence with care, as the cook came back with her glass of goat’s milk and their silverware. Daniel handed him the flask, ordering that it be refilled, which it was then expediently returned moments later along with the half empty bottle and their food. The cook was dismissed for the night and the swift efficiency gave the girl an impression that this was routine. Dividing the food into two portions, Daniel placed a plate before her but her eyes never left him.

“Yes, my sweet,” he at last edified. “H.W. set the fire. He didn’t get hurt, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Why did he set it?”

A second pause allowed Daniel the liberty to guzzle from the replenished whiskey.

“I don’t know,” he declared. “It’s impossible to communicate with him. I wish I had answers but I don’t.”

“Where is he?”

“In San Francisco. There’s a teacher there. She refused to move _here_ so I had to move H.W. _there_.”

“Why aren’t you with him?”

“I didn’t have the heart…to go…it was…unbearable. The hardest thing I ever had to do.”

“He went by himself?”

Already tipsy when she met with him and becoming gradually drunk, he shook his head with the indefinable torment of a parent forced to make a difficult choice.

“Mr. Hamilton went with him. I…couldn’t…” His voice was distant, detached, and she knew he simply was not there with her. Then, in equal melancholy heartache, he remarked, “ _You_ won’t leave me. Will you, Mary? You’ll _never_ leave me.”

“No. I’ll never leave you.”

And she meant it.

“Come here.”

He gestured for her and she readily abided. He needed her and she did not plan to disappoint him. This infallible man who, beforehand, had indented upon her a portrait of impermeable strength and wisdom, who knew how to best solve problems and dealt with them straight-on, suddenly and shockingly did not know what to do. He was _always_ supposed to know how to handle things and she couldn’t understand his newborn incompetence. The new fractious revelation baffled Mary and cast doubt over her beliefs. Not regarding God or religion but about the varying roles of masculinity.

What is a man? Is he predefined by the chemical and physical maleness given by nature or the masculine traits society sets for him? Is he a defender of all he loved, a champion white knight enlivened from the pages of a fairy tale? An exemplary leader of his community who everyone admired and strove to imitate? An almighty effigy of flesh favored in the eye of his spiritual creator, even more valued than his female counterpart? A powerful warrior whose victories or defeats determined his public status as an unlawful terrorist or a merciful sovereign? Is he a savage beast disguised as a civil gentleman tamed only by law? Is he judged based upon his kindness or his wickedness, upon how many love or fear him? Is he carved of stone with emotions comprised of rage and vengeance or an amplification of humility capable of having his feelings hurt so that he weeps openly, unafraid of judgement?

What is an angel? Is it a demi-God tethered to do its creator’s bloodthirsty will? Is it a solacing guardian sent to defend the weak or a terrible warrior out to rectify errant men? Is it a creature manufactured by glory or one insane with murderous intent? Is it a sword-wielding member of a pantheon of assassins awaiting its next assignment or the victim of manipulation, forced to implement tasks that it did not agree with? Is it a holy being whose moral fabric is tested every second of its existence or an immaculate war machine? Does an angel always have to be a mystical figure or can a good man also be revered as one?

And, most profoundly, what is a father? A gentle hand that guides in the right direction with a caress or a fist unfurling into a cold-hearted slap across the face? Is he pure, unparalleled love, a lodestar circumspect of his every action out of fear that he set a bad example for his children to follow, namely his daughters? Or a stringent disciplinarian who forces his offspring and wife to follow his orders else suffer dire consequences? Is he concrete truth behind the oath he professed on his wedding day? Is he appreciable only by what he could provide for those under his care? Is he the sum of his parts – his family – or a whole entity onto himself?

Of these three beings, the girl could attest only to what a father meant to her. A figure of limitless love there to tuck her in at night and ward off monsters with a chaste kiss, a teacher who imparted upon her all of the knowledge accumulated from his experiences, a willing sacrificial lamb, a warm body to snuggle against on cold nights, a gentle caress, a firm voice, safe arms in the dangerous dark. He would enfold her in those strong arms to quiet her fears, discuss her worries no matter his exhaustion or the late hour, and cease every activity to focus his undivided attention on her. He was the linchpin linking her past, present and future, holding together her life and the blazing path she would follow over the course of her lifetime. She was his one pure thing, and he could do no wrong in her eyes. His desire was to give her the world, not fully understanding that _he_ _was_ her world. He was a man who would die for her as assuredly as he lived for her…and dreamt of her when they were separated. Fierce in heart, he epitomized a sacred infusion of the traits of man and angel. Whereas a man was an extension of his society and an angel was an extension of its God, a father was quite different: a son grew up to be a copy of his father but a daughter became an _extension_ of him; he was her first true love and she would search for him in every man she would ever meet. Father is man. Father is angel. Father is God.

Daniel exemplified each of those ideal traits, for he was precisely what she had always wanted in a father: firm in voice and gentle in hand. Be he a non sequitur dismantled by a single tear from his wounded eyes or the disabused idol she had always pictured him as, Daniel had been through enough in the span of a single day. Reaching down, he lifted her and placed her upon his lap then, with utmost tenderness, brushed back a loose strand of flaxen hair from her freckled face.

His emerald eyes, alive with sentiment, were wet with looming tears and red from a merger of dust and tears already spent. His arms wrapped around her, pressed her dearly against him. His insuperable remorse was heartrending beyond description. Removed from the presence of critical adults who would find faulty weakness in his emotion, the strong oil baron, the idol she admired shattered, the veil lifted from her eyes. Once impervious to maudlin displays other than love for children, he now crumbled before her and her alone.

With his face tightly pressed against her shoulder, he granted himself freedom from his romantic affliction. There was no other sign that he cried save for those stealthy tears that dampened the sleeve of her dress. Unlocking her heart for him, she reciprocated the embrace, inhaling the familiar scent of salty sweat, tobacco and whiskey that she’d come to associate with him and with fatherhood. After a prolonged amount of time he released her, quickly wiping the evidence of breakdown off his face with the back of his hand.

“My sweet, sweet Mary,” he professed. “I’m so broken I’m unfixable. I need you so much. What would I do if you weren’t here?”

“I don’t know.”

Her reply was as soft as cotton, salving his wounds.

“I don’t know either and I don’t want to,” he confessed. “But isn’t that the problem with sons? They grow up to leave but daughters stay forever.”

The problem was H.W. hadn’t grown up and left. He was shipped away to a strange city, separated from his friend and father when he needed them most. Yet she still couldn’t blame Daniel for the decision that crippled him with momentous intimacy. Words and be damned, Mary rejected that H.W. was a malcontent firebrand and nothing more to his father as his statement implied. The boy was his crown jewel, the carrier of the Plainview name and seed, a fact undeniably of great importance to him. They were of the same flesh and blood. Despite Daniel’s acceptance of her as family and her edacious desire to belong and to bear the Plainview surname, Mary would never be a Plainview in the same essence and context that H.W. was. For all of his longing to have a daughter, Mary was conscientious of the propensity a man of Daniel’s prominence had for a son. Any daughter in a man’s world would never be a interchangeable asset with a son.

Nestled against him and cradled by him, she was determined to enjoy him in any possible way. If love had foundered him, then it could raise him back up. To her delight he quietly murmured a song into her ear. The child relished his love, having never received any from her real father. Why couldn’t Abel Sunday love her the way Daniel Plainview did? The question smothered her with coexisting irritation and hate towards father yet adulation and gratitude for the man who held her now. This bittersweet experience with Daniel brought forth the dearth of what she had been missing in her oppressed life and its wakefulness throbbed inside her with the agony of a rotten tooth.

Hindsight was clearer and perhaps Eli was right about many of Daniel’s character faults. Altruism was the ingenious disguise for questionable morés. This man, an intolerable misanthrope, founded his wealth off the gullible natives who were rightful owners of the land he usurped from them then treated them with the cold indifference of a monarch who thought little of his peasant subjects. His perfectly implemented ownership that allowed him alone to enjoy the rights of the land brought about strong feelings in everyone because despite their souls belonging to the God Above, their bodies belonged to Daniel and his God Below. Enmeshed in an ambitious rivalry comprised of avarice and envy with her brother, Daniel did what was necessary to ascertain what he wanted, unapologetic of the expense as long as it was someone else’s. A conniving thief, he spoke with a forked tongue to those whose possessions he coveted.

Unraveled now with her, he was a reformed creature almost clean of his wrongdoings. All traces of malevolence were erased, traded for tender nurturing and he became as needy as any other human being, forswearing her sacred apotheosis of him. This was the part of him hidden from everyone but her, evoking her adoration for him beyond what any words were capable of expressing. Strongest at his weakest, his soul was laid bare to her. For all of Daniel’s foibles that were incessantly brought to her attention, his garbled image was repaired by their need for each other.

Her hand stroked over his roughened cheek, marveling at the contrast against her soft palm. A responsive kiss was planted on her forehead before the song was temporarily reprised, interrupted only when he ingested more whiskey. The caress across his face was haptic therapy for them both, she fascinated innately with the sandpapery sensation of his stubble and sharp masculine angles. Never before had she been allowed to touch a male in this way and she was naturally curious, more so because it was taboo. The mandatory duty of a father was to embody what a daughter sees in other men and Daniel was more than willing to step in where Abel was not.

As if to affirm her thoughts he sighed, “My sweet Mary. My sweet daughter. I love you so very much.”

The sun dipped lower, cooling the day’s heat and she dispelled the goose flesh by snuggling closer into him. Time ticked by in a momentous, idyllic silence and Mary basked in his attention, remiss of the obscure hour. No bad person could touch her as long as she was squeezed in this embrace; she swore she felt great wings fold around her body.

The mess hall door unexpectedly swung open, drawing her interest, but it was no deterrence for Daniel. It was Henry, removing his hat and nodding an acknowledgment to her as he entered. Daniel’s concentration went unbroken even when his name was called. Henry sidled closer, reached out and gingerly shook his brother’s shoulder.

“What do you want, Henry?” he grumbled, annoyance prevalent in his voice.

“Don’t you think Miss Mary should be getting home? I’m sure her folks are waiting for her.”

Sluggish from the whiskey, a leaden tongue formed his obtuse speech with greater effort, unleashing more sentimental candor.

“They can go to Hell. Abel Sunday doesn’t deserve her. He spent her entire life misusing her and I’m the only one who stopped him. Mary is more _my_ daughter than she is _his_.”

“I _know_ that, Daniel. I _do_. And so does _she_. But her mother loves her and it isn’t right to keep her worried.”

“Her mother doesn’t love her. If she did, no hand would ever harm her.”

“That may be but either way she shouldn’t be up this late. You’re a father. You know that.”

Henry’s sober reasoning sank into Daniel who complained that Mary was rightfully his and biology did not create decent parents out of monsters. He held her gaze for a long while, contemplating Henry’s argumentative logic.

“You’ll come back to see me tomorrow, won’t you?” he finally asked her.

“Yes,” she responded. “I promised.”

“Yes, you did. Thank you so very much for that. You and H.W. are the world to me.” He kissed each of her freckled cheeks, intending to prolong what was abruptly foreshortened. “Be a good girl now. Go with Henry. He’ll get you home safe. Before you know it you’ll be back here with me in your rightful place.”

Her arms were thrown around his neck, a solemn kiss bestowed on his cheek. He helped her slide from his lap, bequeathing her a compassionate smile and a parting wave. When she told him she loved him and he said it back, her faith that life was a gift from God replenished.

During the brief, awkward walk from the mess hall to the Sunday house, Henry kept his peace over several paces. For that she was thankful, however short-lived it was. The inexplicable aura about him that she could not trust lurked like a vulture circling overhead in wait of death and she wished to have as little contact with him as possible.

“He loves you a great deal, Mary,” he told her as if she wasn’t aware. “You’re very lucky to have so much of his love. It’s hard to come by.”

“He’s right, you know. He’s more my father than the man who really is.”

“Then it’s good that he found you.”

“He changed my life. He saved me.”

“Yeah. Seems like he’s got a way of doing that for people. You could say he did the same for me.”

They halted at the door of the ranch house.

“Good night, Mary,” he wished. “Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of him.”

“Thank you. Good night.”

The she stepped inside where her parents and Eli were assembled around the table, immersed in conversation. Their topic was plain despite her absence; the sudden stillborn atmosphere and wicked glare of Eli’s eyes told her everything.

“Where have you been, young lady?” asked mother.

The girl flinched because she loved mother and, despite Daniel’s inflammatory accusation, she knew that it was reciprocated. While she wanted no secrets between her and mother, the oil man was not open for discussion in front of the Sunday men. The least desirable thing was to provide any private information to her craven brother or to needle him at this late hour when her aspired destination was bed.

“With Mr. Plainview,” she answered, bearing pith, not risking a lie.

Daniel’s name successfully inflamed the bonfire already behind Eli’s eyes but the ordained Holy Spirit’s vessel miraculously kept his composure.

“Of course you were,” mother brushed off. “Off to bed with you now. It’s late.”

“That’s all? She was away at a ridiculously late hour with that unregenerate backslider and you shrug it off with an order for her to go to bed?” Eli castigated. “You shouldn’t let her spend as much time with him as she does. He is a bad influence and she is callow and impressionable. She will go astray if we do not tighten our hold.”

Too fatigued for rebuttal, Mary plodded to her room where Ruth was already in bed, leaving Eli to battle mother’s decision. The stench of oil being pumped out of the ground from the derricks surrounding the property drifted into the room from the leaky windows but Mary breathed deep, savoring it as the scent of change for her. Though unpleasant, it was associated with better things.

Only a few short months ago she damned the immutable, desolate California plains. Now the whilom desert she called home was forever altered by the wells, derricks and all the strenuous, unending toil of their existence. Along with the landscape, her home was not beyond the indomitable reign of the testy Daniel Plainview; the cycle of physical abuse subsided because of his renowned ill temper. The tide had changed and Daniel’s close scrutiny on father’s defective paternal conduct asphyxiated the religious fanatic, the fear he once inflicted on her of him exchanged for his of Daniel. Paul excepted, the Sundays were family only because she had been born to them but her allegiance lay with the man who _acted_ as her father rather than the one who _said_ he was.

With H.W. gone she wanted to staunch his agony as payment for the improvements he made for her. Sleep descended upon her with her friend’s welfare on her mind but it would’ve been a lie to think she wasn’t glad for the opportunity to get closer to her appointed father figure without anyone else in the way.

Keeping with her daily routine, she met Daniel and Henry at the cottage in the morning, taking breakfast with them as appetite afforded her after she’d daintily picked at the one mother provided. Venturing to the field, Daniel accepted Mary’s hand into his, gently caressing its back with his callous thumb. First they checked the progress of the well farthest out and the girl was treated to a simplified account of how the actual drilling process ran. When his qualitative analysis determined that all was functioning efficiently, they resigned to the office.

“You will be my new apprentice,” Daniel proudly christened her. “Teach you about the oil business so you can help H.W. run it someday.”

And thus she was enrolled and so it began. Daniel started her training by having her complete small menial tasks such as retrieving ledgers or replenishing his ink. After a few days he sat her upon his lap and gave her remedial explanations and lessons on his work. Eager, she retained everything like a sponge, impressing him with her swift learning ability and voracious appetite for more.

In no time Daniel discovered just how much of a raw talent had been tapped from within the young girl. A proverbial diamond in the rough, she proved to be more than H.W.’s docile understudy but a gifted, incommensurable future business associate in her own right. She was an anomaly unique to the rural parts of Isabella County, nurtured by the scholarly interests of her open-minded brother Paul, and an exception to the widespread apocryphal assumption that women were worthless outside the home. Upon noting this, a deeper sense of hate for the rest of the townspeople ate at the oil man and he showed them all that his sweet Mary was greater than they, a rose whose scent was sweeter in the center of their inferiority.

“It isn’t enough to be good at something,” he entrusted in her one day. “You have to be _exceptional_ at it. I’ve always been anxious to do new things and ventured into them without fear. In life there is no time for fear. Either you do something or you don’t. Never hesitate or you will lose. These people accuse me of being ruled by what they call greed. But at times, willingness to do new things often goes hand in hand with greed. That’s when it’s called ambition.”

Listening to his wisdom with great interest, she took them with the advertent seriousness of death and undertook the striving quest to earn his highest praises every day.

The lessons worked other wonders too. Less disconsolate over H.W. now that there was another more positive occupation of time, Daniel threw himself into his work deeper than ever. United with the girl child in common interests, their separate but similar pain was reduced by a growing and strengthening bond.

But a spoilsport always rears his ugly head and there was one guess given as to who it was in Little Boston. Passing the office on his way to the church, Eli happened to peer through the window one afternoon and caught her on Daniel’s lap. Such a potent rage transmitted from him that the sensation of an invisible hand clamping down on her throat got Mary to glance up from her lesson and notice him outside. Construction of the new church stagnated the war between the materialistic preacher and the affluent oil man, the younger combatant perpetually preoccupied with spending the half of the fee that _had_ been given to him after drawing up the contract for the ranch’s sale.

The affectionate scene of Mary’s education was the hostile fulcrum that catapulted Eli’s dissent again. That Sunday’s sermon was punctuated with pointed stories about the Devil’s sneaky work of expropriating their homes and morality. He gazed directly at his little sister and pontificated that Satan was an “equal opportunity employer”, recruiting cohorts amongst their female folk by instilling within them desire for knowledge arcane to women. Murmurs of ignorant agreement in the form of _Amen!_ rippled like disturbed water through the room. Mary’s eyes rolled and she sighed, exasperated. The only reason she bothered attending Eli’s officious sermons was to keep a miniscule amount of peace in the Sunday homestead. She didn’t wish for mother to be in a Hell worse than the one she was already in.

Nor did Eli’s barbs cease at the pulpit. Daniel lavished her with a surplus of gifts: nothing as extravagant as the dress but small tokens including a new journal into which she jotted notes on her lessons with him, a good pen and a few barrettes to keep her bangs out of her face while she wrote. The expense graduated, however, when he purchased a locket for her one day. Placing her on the designated seat of his lap, he cracked open the locket, unveiling its contents of two portraits depicting him on one side and H.W. on the opposite.

“We will be with you all the time now,” he explained. “It’s proof of which family you truly belong to. No-one can contest that. _No-one_. Will you wear it all the time?”

She nodded, thinking his ceremonious asking silly.

“Henry, would you keep an eye on things here? I’d like to spend time alone with my daughter.”

Henry studied Daniel with incredulity for the remark but nodded.

“Sure, Daniel,” he accorded. “Whatever you want.”

Daniel vacated his chair, gesturing for Mary to follow. Once their feet touched the dusty ground, he accepted her hand into his again and together they wandered away from the work fields and into the rougher terrain. His bad leg made him ungainly in sandy areas but when she attempted to help he declined assistance and managed on his own.

“Thank you, Mary,” he said after his gangly legs recovered balance. “But it isn’t necessary. The struggle only makes me more determined. Did you ever come up here with H.W.?”

“A few times. I miss him.”

His personal longing was expressed with a sigh before responding, “So do I, my sweet.” He paused for a brief moment then, without preamble, entrusted her with a private history. “My father was a ruthless man. He spared nothing to inflict harm on my mother or my sister Annabelle. Or me. He never needed reasons to hit us, excuses were all that were necessary and one was found every day to beat at least one of us. He was a rotten scoundrel who led a miserable life with liquor as his comfort and inspiration to make everyone around him unhappy. When he was laid off from the textile mill things got worse. My mother was forced to endure his abuse all day, every day. He was king of his household, you see, and everyone in it served him or suffered the consequences. We were always at the mercy of his drunken cruelty and none of us were ever safe around him.

“Annabelle found a boyfriend in a new schoolmate just before her seventeenth birthday, but she kept him secret from our parents for a long time. She told me about him straight away and arranged a meeting between us to get my approval since she wasn’t going to get one from our father. His name was Charlie. I liked him and I’ve never liked many people. Annabelle was infatuated with him and he suited her. So, because I wanted her to escape our miserable life and find happiness, I approved. In only a few short weeks Charlie asked for my permission to marry her. Do you know what I told him?”

Mary shook her head, spellbound by the narrative.

“I gave him my blessing but warned if he ever raised a hand against her then I would hunt him down and cut his throat as he slept. As far as I know he’d never hurt her but if I got a letter today telling me otherwise I’d make good on my promise.” He sighed again before correcting, “I’m getting ahead of myself. The night she planned to elope with Charlie, Annabelle wrote a note to our mother telling her the story. I was supposed to sneak her out of the house and carry her baggage to where Charlie waited down the road. On our way out, she decided to leave her note on our mother’s pillow next to her. As she did, our father, drunk and hiding in the dark, reached out and grabbed hold of her wrist. Before I could drop her baggage and go to her rescue he’d already roughed her up with a fist to her face. For the first time in my life I struck my father with the fury built on a lifetime of abuse and hatred. I told that monster that he would never hit Annabelle or me ever again and that it would be a long time before he hit our mother. I stomped the hell out of his hands until I heard the fingers break, told my mother to leave while she was able and escorted Annabelle to Charlie without the comforts of her belongings. We were lucky to escape with our lives so she didn’t complain.

“I don’t know how our father found out about Annabelle’s plans or if our mother ever got away because I never went back. I made my way west, out to Kansas to start a new life. I never looked back.”

He plucked a cigarette from the pack in his back pocket, lit it and inhaled deeply from it as he stared into the distant darkened horizon, recuperating from the telling of his intimate anecdote before he spoke again.

“Since then I don’t tolerate the abuse of children. I’ve made war with those who do. I had a nice talk about it with your father and you saw what I did to Eli. They won’t harm you ever again. Someday _you’ll_ walk away, never look back and be all the better for it. Life is a blank book where we write our own destinies. No god controls our fate.”

An important element had been omitted from Daniel’s tale, she realized.

“What about Henry? Where was _he_?”

“Henry was elsewhere, my sweet. He didn’t live with us.”

“Why not?”

“That’s a complicated story for another time.”

“Why did you tell me this?”

“To show you that I know how you feel because I’ve been there before. And to let you know that you’re worthy to bear the Plainview name.”

She inched closer to her protector, the great champion for children’s rights, and encircled him in her empathic arms. Control of her tears was impossible and she never felt more honored than when his wiry arm wrapped around her and gently caressed her back. They held each other as if posing for a painting until he finished smoking and announced that he would walk her home.

At her doorstep, he stooped down with her hands held dearly in his, and gave her a smile so full of commiserated fondness that it was unlike any of the others that had preceded it. Common strife reinforced the father/daughter, teacher/pupil bond already fashioned between them. Her recalled crush caused something light and feathery to churn inside her tummy, fluttering delicately for release. In response, she giggled and he returned the laughter.

“Good night, Mary,” he softly whispered.

“Good night.”

“I love you and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Smiling jubilantly, she nodded.

“Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite,” he closed.

“I won’t!” she laughed.

“Go on now. Get inside.”

Mary dispensed a furtive kiss on his rough cheek and bounced into the house. Pleased that he did not budge until she was fully inside, she loathed that she needed to shut the odious door between them.

“Mary!” mother greeted her. “Were you out with Mr. Plainview again?”

“Yes. He walked me back.”

“That’s nice of him. Are you hungry?”

She shook her head.

“Then wash up and go to bed.”

Succumbing without protest, the weariness of the day struck her bones rapidly. Tonight she couldn’t wait to crawl into bed and close her eyes. The sooner she did the sooner she could share another day with Daniel. Maybe he would impart more of his esoteric biography to her if she was lucky. The vignette recounting his past made her feel extra special because he never revealed personal information to anybody. In the months of his Little Boston residency, he remained as much a curio as he was the day he arrived.

Climbing into bed, she abruptly stopped the ruffling of her bed clothes when she heard two familiar voices outside the window. One was the unmistakable commanding growl of Daniel while the other was the mousy sacrosanct tone of Eli, each trying to gainsay the words from the other as was their frequent custom. Her ears rang from the intensity with which she listened.

“…what you did to your own son,” her brother was caught in mid-sentence. “I suspect you intend to use Mary as a replacement for him. I’ve noticed how you pamper her as if she was your own…”

“She is a part of my family and she was a part of it before H.W. left. If that upsets you then it isn’t my problem.”

“Yes, but now you rid yourself of H.W. you want to use my sister as a pawn in your game against me.”

“You think far too highly of yourself, Eli. She means more to me than she ever will to any of you. No real brother would treat her the way you do. She means nothing to you. She isn’t your sister any more than this is your land. Go back to your church and stay there far away from me. And if you dare speak my son’s name again I will cut out your tongue in front of your congregation and show them who the Devil really is.”

By the shuffle of his familiarized gait, Mary knew that Daniel walked away. Minutes later she heard Eli saunter off in the opposite direction, put in his place again. She was gratified.

Daniel was already awake and his morning cigarette reduced to ash on the ground by the time Mary called the next day. He and Henry were leaving for work, taking her aback with disappointment that she had been excluded and uninformed about their intentions. It must have been _men’s business_.

“Good morning, my sweet,” greeted Daniel, smoothing back her hair and kissing her speckled cheek in faithful practice.

“Where are you going?” she inquired, unafraid of his anger over her prying.

“We’re going to meet some men today who want to make an offer on my land.”

Mary’s stomach ached violently.

“You’re not going to _leave_ me, are you?”

“No, no! I’d _never_ leave you, Mary. It’s just good business protocol to show up and hear what they have to say.”

“Can _I_ come?”

He lightly chuckled but shook his head.

“Not this time. It would be inappropriate to show up with a child…”

It was too late. Mary’s ego rippled with insult.

“You’d take H.W. if he was here! You won’t take me because I’m a _girl!_ ”

With a cracked voice and pouting lips, she wanted him to see how injured she was by his omission of her. By teaching her other aspects of his work he awakened a part of her that fed rapaciously off the enlightenment. Education was a necessary achievement if her life was ever to improve and she was offended that he who made her hungry for it now denied it to her. The more she learned the more she wanted to know and now she would starve for it.

Daniel’s attention redirected to Henry, sending a tacit request for a private moment and the Plainview sibling readily complied, as he did with all of Daniel’s directives. When Henry was a suitable distance away, Daniel crouched down with painstaking consternation to meet her eye to eye. Placing his hands on her upper arms either to secure her or support himself, he spoke:

“How could you _say_ that?” he questioned, his bruised objective glinting in this verdant eyes. “ _Tell_ me you don’t mean it.”

Silence wrecked her with combined remorse and shame, trussed as her age insisted.

“Mary,” he barely whispered, then raised his voice firmly: “That just isn’t true. You know it isn’t. You _know_. If it was then I would’ve never given you lessons on the business. Listen to me. I don’t take H.W. to these types of meetings either. I treat you with the same respect that I treat him with. I still sit him on my lap and teach him the same lessons in the same manner that I teach you. I know you’re as strong and as smart as any boy. You’ve proven that to me on many occasions.”

Anguish not quelled, a frustrating unrest generated between them.

Finally he compromised, “How about this: when I return, you and I will take another walk down to the beach. Then we’ll talk some more. All right?”

She nodded and was rewarded with a kiss.

“That’s a girl. I’m so proud of you. I’ll see you when I get back.”

He struggled to stand again and she reverently helped him not only because the etiquette of her upbringing compelled her to but also because she despised watching her pillar of strength falter against his one Achilles heel. Thanking her, he hobbled off with Henry chasing in his shadow.

There was nothing much to do, her reliance on work with Daniel to consume her time ruined; the economics book that H.W. had perused on a passed afternoon was remembered. Trying the door, it opened and she unceremoniously entered, knowing its inhabitants welcomed her to do so.

Reading was evidently not a favorite Plainview pastime because there were neither bookshelves nor a visible library, so she pondered about where the text book was stashed. Being that it apparently belonged to H.W., it might’ve been hidden somewhere around his bed. Getting down on her hands and knees, her first effort bore immediate fruit as she ferreted out a stack of books secreted within the dusty space beneath. Striving to grasp and yank one out, her brother’s voice jolted her away from her task.

“You’ve been warned and still you come here. I cannot save you or your precious reprobate. You came to a crossroads and willingly chose the left-handed path.”

His eyes strayed to her breast where the locket Daniel gifted her with rested. If possible, his already apathetic eyes dulled deeper with the eerie emptiness of a doll’s poignant stare. The child’s flesh crept and broke out in a cold sweat.

“Material bribes in exchange for your immortal soul,” he sneered, “things to further dissever you from your rightful place. His generous gift-giving rots your soul. Expensive gifts and a man’s education. Oh, how he cossets you like a pet! Will it be worth it, Mary?”

“I don’t think he’d like you being in here,” she warned the detested interloper, feigning counteractant bravery in the face of danger.

“I won’t be long, there’s no need to blab to him of this visit. I was walking by and spotted you through the window and saw you were alone. I stopped in to deliver some news to my morally wayward sister.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Eli.”

“But I think you _should_ , since the lap that you so joyously place yourself upon has also seated a cheap town harlot.”

The vile, sacrilegious debate kindled her infuriation.

“Stop _lying_ about him, Eli, I _won’t_ believe _anything_ you say.”

“But it’s _a fact_ ,” Eli traduced, delighting in how his words lacerated her spirit. “No matter. You’ll see for yourself eventually. The longer he babies you the more it will hurt when your eyes open to his heathen ways. Now that he’s added whore monger amongst his other faults, you’ll see the truth. Doesn’t it _bother_ you that a common _whore_ shares the same lap _you_ sit upon? Don’t you feel _filthy_? Doesn’t it make wonder what his intentions toward _you_ might be? She may have infected him with a disease so you’d better take care. My concern only lies with _you_ , my sister. Already his whore’s tongue is as loose as her morality. She brags to everyone about the large sums of money he spends on her during their nocturnal trysts. Like he spends large amounts on _you_. I am not surprised. Wealth and success has disfigured his soul. Do you suppose he was with her the night he left H.W. with us? Imagine that: abandoning a sick child in favor of a dirty prostitute. I shudder to think of the judgment that will meet him in the afterlife and I pity him greatly, as do I all those who place themselves willingly upon his lap.”

Finished with his latest tactless slander against her father figure, the sanctimonious brother left, the trace of a faint smile across his boyish face. Mary flopped over H.W.’s bed, reflecting on what Eli told her. She did not want to take the newest defamation of Daniel’s character seriously yet at the same time she didn’t entirely ignore it. Disfigurement of the soul, indeed. Based on this revelation, Eli and Daniel neglected to join in her present epiphany comparing their frightening similar behavior. Then _both_ possessed a deformity of the soul, their signatures signed in blood on Satan’s contract. Each played the Devil against the other and ownership was interchangeable between them. Right now she was unclear as to who was the Devil to whom.

Was it possible that Daniel had fallen to the temptations of a whore? Unwanted, vivid images of him with a salacious woman perched on his lap with raised skirts and bared breasts, engaged in carnal rapture of each other surged through her mind. Her body heated, her concerted jealousy unbearable. The last thing she wanted was to think of him doing those disgusting things, whether they were voluntary on his part or not. If the implications were true and were done voluntarily then she would never forgive Daniel for it.

A chronic betrayal infected her that she didn’t completely understand. In essence, Daniel owed her nothing. Their charade of relation was annulled by the reality that there was no shared blood in their veins. There were no romantic prospects because of the wide age gap and her illegal age so no lovers’ tragedy would end their story. What difference did it make to her if he had a nocturnal playmate of ill repute? He was an adult and she a lovelorn child. So what exactly was she double-crossed by?

Not wanting to believe a single syllable, she also was not benighted enough to believe that _all_ of his outings with Henry were business and certainly the one taken at night while H.W. was left with her family had not been. To save herself future disappointment, she decided to keep it at the back of her mind just in case. The odds strengthened her loathing of Eli, whether his claims were legitimate or malicious doggerel invented by a counterfeit. How would Eli know that Daniel had been with a prostitute unless he was with her too? Any dirt dug up about a hooker’s clientele came with a price.

Reinforced and protected by her lionized image of Daniel, she struggled to rid herself of the negative thoughts. Dwelling on it refreshed her hate for him, thus falling victim to Eli’s nocuous scheme. Stretching out across the bed, she dispelled them with forced thoughts of H.W. and what life had been like for him after his banishment to San Francisco. There was no doubt he was receiving the best possible care courtesy of the Plainview fortune. Well fed and treated like a prince, he was probably replacing her with new friends. The likelihood of being substituted wounded her, resurfacing the newborn disgust for his father and further allowing Eli a vacuous win.

Blackness set in her eyes before she realized how tired idleness had rendered her. Hours later, a sinister dream jolted her up with a gasp as if a spectral hand was wrapped around her throat. While nobody else occupied the cottage, there was the original disconcerted thought that Henry was murdering her.

The day was belated, indicated by the room’s loss of sunlight, and she knew that the brothers Plainview had to already be returned from their latest replete business venture. Rising from the bed, she rushed outside and in the direction of the fields. Youth afforded her the energy to reach the parameter of the field in a brief span of time, the office in sight quickly despite the rough terrain. Wiping sweat from her brow, she was exhilarated when she noticed Daniel’s lithe, noble form inscribed by the setting sun as he smoked outside.

“My sweet Mary!” he declared, spying her. “I thought that you’d find your way back sooner.”

“I fell asleep at the cottage.”

“Then you’re well rested for our evening stroll.”

With Eli’s story embedded in her memory, she nodded disinclination but clasped hands with him nevertheless and together they sojourned into the hills. The pair traversed a great distance away from the fields before Daniel selected a spot decent for sitting then drew her near after she stood for a moment half-glaring at him in animosity. The green Leviathan who presides over the sin envy coiled around her heart tighter but Daniel was oblivious.

“How was your day?” he asked genially. “Did you do anything other than sleep?”

“Not much.”

“Don’t feel too bad for it, my day was equally unproductive and I might as well have stayed in bed.” Then in an almost incomprehensible mutter: “That idiot Tilford doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”

“Who’s Tilford?”

Inflexible and detached, his expression warned that this particular ramble was not meant for her ears but he sighed deep and answered, “Someone who was lucky Henry was there with me. Funny how a sibling can impact your temperament. He’s not like Eli. You need another brother who is good to you.”

She had another brother who was good to her. Once a long time ago. Was he either leading up to something or fishing for information? Leviathan’s monstrous jealousy was slain by a surge of hope that Daniel was going to expose the fate of her missing brother.

“Mr. Plainview, can I ask a question?”

“Promise to call me Daniel from now on and you can ask me whatever you like.”

Biting her tongue in abstinent inquiry about the whore, Mary blurted out, “Did you know my brother Paul? I have another brother named Paul and Eli said he told you to come here.”

“He did, did he?”

“Yes, and he said that Paul told you to take our land away from us.”

“What makes you believe Paul told me to come here?”

“Paul was supposed to go to Signal Hill and bring back an angel who would make things better. _You_ came from Signal Hill, didn’t you?”

“Yes, before I came to Little Boston I was in Signal Hill. Tell me: why do you think I’m an angel?”

“Because you did what you were supposed to do. You stopped my father from hurting me. You made things better.”

“Could you keep a secret?”

“Better than most grown-ups can.”

A hearty laugh was elicited from him.

“So you can,” he agreed. “Well I’ll trust you to not tell one more. Eli’s right. Paul found me and told me about the oil here. I came because he wanted me to.”

Elated and upset simultaneously, she choked: “Where is he? Why didn’t he come back with you?”

“Paul is…somewhere. Getting rich off another piece of land.”

“Why hasn’t he come back for me? He _promised_ to come back for me. Doesn’t he love me any more?”

“He _does_ love you, Mary. He loves you very much. That’s why he sent me.”

Her shoulders slumped as she resigned, “I guess.”

“I received a letter from him today. That’s why I was adamant in talking to you tonight. I thought you’d like to read it for yourself.”

Her eyes brightened with excitement and she nodded vigorously.

“Yes, please!” she cried, impatient as any doting sister would be for news from a lost treasured brother.

She watched, eager as he removed a folded but crisp letter from his pocket and presented her with it. Overwrought, her trembling fingers grasped and opened it to see her brother’s uncommonly neat script, eyes darting to the familiar signature at the bottom for immediate verification.

_Dear Mr Plainview:_

_I hope this letter finds you in good health and all is faring you well in my humble hometown. I hope you like my youngest sister Mary; she’s a diamond in the rough with few good things to have come her way. All she needs is the proper guidance and she will excel. She will be convinced you are the angel she’s been asking God for. I’m sure you’ll grow to love her. She’s sweet and bright. Please be kind to her and take good care of her in my absence._

_I have good news on my end. I went on my own pursuit for oil, inspired by your success. The money you gave me was used to start my own drilling company. I heard there was oil farther south and decided to travel there to see. Turns out I was right. I believe I will have a very gainful production here, enough so that I will never want for anything again. Tell Mary that I love her dearly and I will come back for her after I get off my feet better. Tell her I think of her every day. I trust she is safe in your hands._

_With Sincerest Gratitude,_

_Paul Sunday_

So it _hadn’t_ been a fortuitous windfall that had sent the oil prospector to her! Paul’s involvement was verified, the evidence clutched firmly in her hands. The emollient letter soothed the perpetual worry for her estranged brother but the desire for a reunion unfitfully stirred within her. Folding the parchment, she was about to slide it into the tiny pocket in the front of her dress when Daniel confiscated it from her.

“I don’t think it’s smart for you to keep it, my sweet.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a reason Paul wrote to me and not directly to you. I don’t think I need to point out the evangelistic half of Paul’s birth.”

Mary shook her head, catching the hint.

“No, you don’t,” she admonished.

“If he writes again I’ll be sure to let you know right away.”

“Thank you. For that and for letting me read the letter.”

“You’re welcome. You can write back to him in my office tomorrow if you like. I’m going out with Henry tonight so I’ll walk you back home now.”

She did not contest him despite an intense desire to spend more time interrogating him about Paul. But he was the father and therefore he knew what was best so she willingly obeyed, wanting to remain in his good favor. At the door he kissed her good night and waited for her to disappear inside before leaving.

Sleep was troublesome; thoughts of the future weighed down her mind. Paul’s ultimate plan was to return for her, zipping her off to a happier life. The problem was it meant she would be forced to leave Daniel, the one person who rescued her, the angel who made the most noteworthy impact on her life. Yes, Paul had sent him, but Daniel was the one who made the difference. It was unimaginable to be parted from her adopted father. The entirety of her life had been spent wishing for a man like Daniel Plainview and now that her wish was granted she determined to not lose the man she worshipped. Not ready to let him go, she would hold on to him with ardent tooth and nail, if need be.

An exciting idea formed: perhaps the solution was a partnership between the two. If Paul and Daniel merged their enterprises then maybe they could coexist as one family. Only one thing could foul that dream. An avaricious businessman, Daniel’s hunger for power was insatiable and all was trampled in his quest for it. Without doubt he’d be reluctant to share authority and would exert it enough on the Sunday boy to engulf him. Mary put faith in the logic that Daniel understood that if they could ally themselves then he would gain more power from the arrangement. Together they would be unstoppable, a lucrative deal which Daniel would not be able to altogether resist.

The prospector was not at the cabin the next morning, nor was he at the office and Fletcher was clueless on his whereabouts too. The anxious glaze about the right hand man’s face disconcerted the girl who inwardly cursed Daniel for his frequent mysterious disappearances. She was trapped inside walls of infinite worry for him. Daniel was a great man and great men were never at a loss of enemies or perilous run-ins.

Henry was untraceable too and old fears that he masterminded a horrid fate for his half-brother lashed at her. Yet Henry and Daniel persistently went off together only to come back hours later, worse for the wear thanks to long nights of carousing but in good condition otherwise. No other recourse was open so she put worry behind her for the rest of the morning.

When mid-day came but the Plainview brothers did not, she relapsed into a maelstrom of panic. Fletcher offered kind words of mollification.

“Don’t worry, Mary,” he prescribed. “Daniel’s tough as nails. He’ll be all right, you’ll see.”

Yet Fletcher did not appear convinced of it himself.

“I’ll wait for him at the cottage,” she informed.

A letter answering Paul’s correspondence to Daniel was penned in her ledger during her wait. Writing quickly but thoughtfully, her amateur but pretty penmanship filled the clean paper with brief details chronicling her life since his flight, questioning him on his time and experiences and whether he planned on coming back soon. He was missed terribly and she loved him more with each passing day, she finished, and by the time the letter closed it was five pages long.

After sitting for an hour in the rickety contraption of a chair outside the cottage door, Mary broke down, sobbing with reprieve when the distant sound of slow hoof beats signaled a horseman’s steady and eminent approach. Her prayers were answered when Daniel appeared astride the loping stallion, resembling a war-beaten soldier returning from battle. Barely able to stay upon the horse, he all but collapsed from the animal’s back when it stopped, his knees buckling when his feet hit the ground. Playing the part of the good daughter, she rushed to his side, doing her best at steadying him.

“Mary,” he addressed, voice hoarse and husky. “Thank you so much. Help me inside, will you?”

She bore the burden of as much of his heavy weight as she could, he vying with painstaking effort to not place too much on her as they entered the residence. The repugnant stench of his unbathed, whiskey saturated body nearly made her gag and when he dropped down on the nearest bed – H.W.’s bed – she had to turn away from him to breathe easier for a few seconds.

“That’s a good girl,” he extolled, looking at her through eyes swollen from either tears or lack of sleep. “I knew you would help me. I appreciate it very much.”

“Are you OK?” she asked inquisitively, wrinkles of tormented concern carved in her forehead.

“Yes, I am now. Now that I’m home with you to take care of me everything will be fine.”

“Where’s Henry?”

The query visibly rattled him as his bloodshot eyes widened a bit more to gaze at her. Clearly they pained him, indicated by the grubby hand he raised to his temple.

“Henry won’t be with us any more,” he chose his words deliberately.

Relieved to hear the confided discretion, Mary could not hide her interest in Henry’s reason for leaving town so out of the blue after his acclaim that Daniel supplied a new genesis to an otherwise seedy lifestyle. Daniel had given him the means of a fresh start and in her opinion it was unappreciative of him to leave without warning as mysteriously as he had come.

“Why? Where did he go?”

But Daniel was as slick and oleaginous as the black ooze he pumped out of the ground.

“He had to leave, sweet Mary. He’s buried in _other_ work.”

The severe gleam in Daniel’s eyes cued her to not pursue the topic further. Nevertheless, she was dying to know what offensive crime Henry had committed that made him fall from grace and be unworthy of the coveted Plainview name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long chapter as recompense for my long absence. :)


	9. IX. An Infernal Atonement

**IX. An Infernal Atonement**

Mary elected to care for Daniel for the whole day while he slept. Fresh, clean water was brought in with a filled glass set aside for her hero when he woke up. Drenching a towel in the pail, she wrung it out and used it to wipe the sweat and grime off his handsome, coarse face, a process repeated every now and then to keep him cool in his repose.

Copying the identical respectable routine she demonstrated during H.W.’s neediness, Mary stationed herself in the chair at the foot of the bed, thriving in the resolute onus of a loyal daughter. Time crept forward and day edged into darkened evening but she was sedentary at his bedside except when she tended to her most urgent needs, her eyes rarely taking leave of his virtually comatose form.

With a sputtering groan his lethargy ended, life abruptly revived at last. Startled, she gasped, almost falling backwards to the floor. His rehabilitated eyes found her in the gloaming of the room.

“My sweet Mary,” he muttered, voice still scratchy. “Were you here with me this entire time?”

She nodded solemnly.

Sitting up, he swung his long legs over the side of the bed and ran a hand through his sweat-matted hair. Waiting with requisite solicitude, she anticipated his every move. Blanched and sickly, he looked stricken with influenza, but Mary was smart and knew it was called a hangover.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” he said softly. “It means so much to me.”

“You’re welcome.”

A hand suddenly covered his stomach and he battled for control over his body. By the passing second his illness worsened and although she never experienced alcoholism with her own immediate family, she’d lived it vicariously through the nasty details supplied by Anne Harper whose father also took his imbibition of whiskey to a detrimental extreme.

“Would you excuse me, please, Mary?” he requested before bolting from the cottage and away from the threshold.

Seconds later the sounds of retching and vomit splattering on the ground reached her ears. To the window she rushed and, although his back was to her, saw him hunched over, doubled up and vomiting profusely. Wincing at his vulnerable state, she was aghast at sight of the human frailty she never assumed him to possess. It was ridiculous of her to think him above such human, deleterious behavior and, despite her rigid belief that he transcended it as her appointed guardian angel, the truth of his humanity was never more exposed to her as it was now.

Several prolonged minutes and a few more putrid ejaculations later, he rose to his full height. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand then lit a cigarette, probably to sweeten his breath with the tobacco. At that moment she remembered the reserved glass of water waiting for him. Clutching the glass, she joined him in the sylvan desert night.

“I brought you some water,” she announced, offering him the glass.

Without pretense, he slaked his thirst, restoring his throat with the cool liquid.

“Thank you,” he sighed, handing back the empty glass. “You’re a good girl.”

His tired eyes drifted from her to the murky sky and desert remoteness.

“You’ll spend the night,” he decided on her behalf. “It’s too late for you to walk home alone and I’m not well enough to take you. You can take my bed, I don’t use it so it’s got clean sheets.”

No protest was brought forth on Mary’s part. It was no surprise that she voted to be with him than go back to the hellhole she theoretically called home. Home is where the heart is and the Plainview cottage was where hers had gone to stay. Daniel could be completely unconscious and she would be better off there with him. Right now her interest was the bed; she very much preferred that he slept in it next to her and held her as she fantasized him doing even before they’d ever met. But she kept her mouth shut, not taking this special time for granted, so that his recumbent form occupied the floor while hers mimicked his prostrate position in the bed’s blissful close proximity. Incapable of falling asleep straight away, she watched the steady rise and fall of his chest in the opaque moonlight. Fletcher’s edict that his employer was as tough as nails was proved in the habitual way he slept face down on the hard wood floor. Yet the mere presence of the unbreakable titan provided her lucid comfort that was as soft as an angel’s feathers. Whether he was there on the floor or in the bed with her when she finally slept, it was undoubtedly the best sleep the young girl ever had.

Speculated rumors about Henry’s untimely and hasty retreat vivified Little Boston like a wildfire eating through the Californian plains as early as the next day. It began immediately when the roughnecks noticed his unaccounted absence at the office and later fanned out to the church congregation when a portion of the men attended the daily service then on to the rest of the townsfolk from the congregation.

Daniel did nothing to pacify the tension but instead fueled it with his refusal to answer for his brother’s whereabouts. Veracity was selective when a few times he elucidated that Henry returned to New Mexico, which would have been credible had his sobriety been consistent and he had not told others that Henry went to visit Annabelle in Fon du Lac. Most of the time he simply growled that he didn’t like to explain himself and held his tongue on the subject, which was just as well since he had already more or less incriminated himself in a way yet uncovered. The oil man thrived on using the inflammatory gossip as a guessing game to drive the nosey citizens mad with wonder. And it served them right. Though equally curious, Mary understood it was none of her business while everyone else scampered for details they were not entitled to.

Added to it was the torrid rage father feebly disguised pertaining to her indecent night alone with Daniel. News of the matter meant an early Christmas for Eli whose scold and scorn oozed through his pretentious cool as puss would from an infected wound. This was the sort of retribution he had been waiting for. Patronizing annotations spewed from his mouth about Daniel’s profane request for a little girl who was nothing to him to spend the night alone with him. It was heavily implied that the boorish oil man had perverse appetites for her that should have him lynched. The frightening thing was that had Daniel not been a feared influence, the death proposal may have succeeded. She knew her brother didn’t care about her, he just wanted to further his selfish cause. Eli was merciless and discriminate in what he heard so she saved her energy and did not bother correcting him despite the great sorrow in her heart that Daniel’s stainless intent could be mangled so cruelly.

Hindsight mocked her with personal responsibility for lacking the common sense to argue against a morally impractical extended visit to the cottage. She had only wanted to be with him. By doing so, she meant him no other grievances than those he already suffered. They were Samson and Delilah: he an icon of strength while she, albeit inadvertently, brought him down. Was woman, no matter at what age, always the downfall of man, just as Eli and father taught? Outrage widened around her loved one and she detested with fervor the oblique stares people gave him or how they whispered when his back was turned. By the day’s end his men pretended that nothing was out of the ordinary, deciding their livelihood was more important than a witch hunt against their employer and consoling Mary with their decision. Strong-armed authority provided Daniel with fierce loyalty if nothing else. Those particular roughnecks marked as gossipmongers realized their folly of biting the hand that fed and clothed them and hastily retracted their vilification. The men had known Daniel far longer and better than the Little Bostonians who dished hearsay for lack of any other entertainment. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil and no evil will be done.

The worst part was the way _Eli_ looked at Daniel. Ever the holier-than-thou evangelist, her brother preached slanderous daily sermons against the impurity of man, always directing less than subtle allusions at Daniel. Hate for Eli accelerated Mary’s pulse during each lecture and she knew it impossible for him to ever fall in her good graces again, even if his defamation verified true. The protracted animosity between Eli and Daniel festered during the week after Henry’s disappearance like an infected wound, more than making up for its semi-dormant hiatus. It was as if Eli _knew_ something and that Daniel was aware of his knowledge.

Turning an advertent eye from the spiteful torment, she made headway in her daily lessons with Daniel and walked with him in the evenings as if nothing was out of the ordinary, two fugitives determined to ignore the hellfire that blazed at their backs. A more profound bond forged between them through their recent ordeals in H.W.’s absence. As long as Daniel did not mind then she would not relent and he had always been a man who cared not for what others thought of him. He sloughed off their noisome remarks like a snake shedding its skin and she admired him for it. Why should he care if he was doing nothing wrong?

On the Sunday following Henry’s departure, the whole town plus the portion of Daniel’s roughnecks who had converted into church members turned out for service. No different from any other Sunday except for one odd, misplaced visitor. Coming in from a pre-service playful romp, Mary tried to furtively slip by Eli’s front office alcove where she heard him in discussion with a handful of subservient acolytes. Had it not been for her quick reflexes to stop short and dodge around the corner, she would have been glimpsed by her brother when he glanced up in response to the intrusion of his freshly arrived and completely unpredicted visitor. Blanched as if an exorcised ghost had returned for vengeance, Eli rose, his chair screeching back and almost toppling over.

“Don’t you _dare_ hit me!” he ordered in stern warning, set to parry off any violence.

Both brother and sister poised for an assault by the incorrigible prospector but Daniel maintained a humbled composure.

“I’m looking for a fresh start, Eli,” he announced in an unostentatious tone that shocked everyone else in the room. “I need your blessing…”

Taken aback, Mary’s heart pounded like a horse’s hooves while Eli’s face was ornamented with a triumphant, condescending smile to the man before him. The girl left the men to seek her family in the main auditorium, knowing there was secret men’s business afoot that this time she wanted no part of.

Fifteen minutes later, seated with her parents and Ruth at the center of the room, she watched a somber Daniel walk into the enclave of his enemies as if he was on trial for murder and the room full of people were there to testify against him. Old man Bandy, balefully serious, was with him. At once a domino effect disintegrated the solemn and quiet auditorium into a hailstorm of gossip, transforming the room into a humming beehive of disparagement. Those who did not see Daniel walk in were nudged by those who did. What sacrilege, they exclaimed, for the Devil to infiltrate their holy sanctuary!

The dubious pair of acquaintances seated themselves in the row in front of the Sundays. In disregard for what anyone else, including her family, thought, she tapped his shoulder and kissed his cheek when he turned. Her twin objective was to offer him solace and to show the others how trivial their self-righteous troublemaking was. They probably viewed Daniel’s attendance as repentance for his illegal keeping of Mary over night, a success for Eli and his God, but Mary felt the iconoclast’s request for the consecration was owed to a deeper conspiracy.

“Hello, Mary,” was his muttered greeting. “Good morning to my sweetheart.”

“Why are you here?” she inquired, hoping he would clue her in on his game.

But his disappointing reply was terse and plaintive.

“I’ve been shown the error of my ways.”

The tone of his voice and hesitancy to make eye contact with her, going against his first rule of conduct, was an adequate hint that something was amiss; the sideways glare he administered to the oblivious Bandy suggested that the old man was the author of Daniel’s contrition.

“I’ll be right here,” was her soothing whisper in his ear. “No matter what happens.”

He answered with a slight appreciative nod then faced forward again. She positioned herself at the end of the pew beside Ruth who smiled compassionately at her. If anyone else believed in Daniel’s innocence it was her sister and that was worth more to her than the belief of every Christian in Little Boston. Complacency was hard to come by in the room as Mary braced for what she knew would be Eli’s chance for revenge.

During the opening hymns as Eli and the gaggle of servants he had conversed with earlier entered in a state of pious grandeur in claimant of superiority, Mary’s eyes inevitably trained on Daniel who continued with no attempt in looking up at eye level.

“I truly wish everyone could be saved, don’t you?” Eli wasted no time in declaiming and his devotees responded in the affirmative. “I’m afraid that’s just not the case.”

To ease her distress, Mary occupied herself with mental retaliations against Eli’s hypocrisies while keeping her bearing as calm as an unrustled leaf.

 _Just shut up, Eli,_ you’re _the one who needs saving! But you can’t save the Devil from his own fire, can you?_

Eli was on a mission to burnish the figurative mud from his person and damn Daniel’s soul in any way possible. There was favoritism in fate today with every member of the Third Revelation present, rallied by the preacher’s false god. All had come to bear witness to the spectacle of the wayward oil man’s salvation without knowledge of it beforehand, subconsciously drawn to the scent of presupposed blood about to be spilt.

 _Strange how everyone’s here today!_ _As if they willed it to happen, like they were witches with the third eye!_

“The doctrine of universal salvation is a lie, isn’t it?” he baited, to which the other holy rollers were fervent to agree.

 _This is like the inquisition Paul told me about in Europe!_ Mary compared. _My poor Daniel! What is Eli going to do to him?_

Softer, Eli rebutted the promise of his God to impress that he cared, “I wish _everyone_ could be saved, but they won’t. _No, they won’t_. You will _never_ be saved if you…”

“Reject the blood!” all the trained witch finder generals finished in unison.

 _Reject_ you _, Eli! You’re a scoundrel!_ You’re _the devil you preach about! Everyone’s just too blind to see it!_

“Good,” the preacher commended, appeased that his years of brainwashing them was effective. Then came the moment Mary dreadfully anticipated: the predator was about to pounce on his prey. “Now is there a sinner here looking for salvation?” Quiet. “A new member?”

Dead silence. Daniel was not going to easily cave in and his willpower swelled her with unparalleled loyalty.

The fraudulent preacher was equally persistent: “I’ll ask it again.” More sternly: “Is there a sinner here looking for God?”

“Yes,” Daniel’s deep voice boomed as he stood up, hand raised.

The suddenness of his voice surprised Mary whose own tremulous hand was covered by a sympathetic one of Ruth’s.

_Daniel’s man enough to take whatever Eli gives him! He is resilient! So am I!_

A minuscule shred of confidence was added to her stormy mind by the contemplation but tears welled in her eyes nevertheless. Sensing this, Ruth squeezed her hand firmly. Daniel half-heartedly ambled to the stage where he reluctantly confronted the town he had swindled and offended, hands folded behind his back and head bowed in divorce of the impending shame. Doubtless he needed to force his dignity back a step to endure just the simple act of sitting inside the church during service.

“We have a sinner with us here who wishes for salvation!” vituperated Eli loudly and with far too much gusto as he joined Daniel on the stage.

 _This is going to be bad!_ Mary’s throat inflamed with horror. _We’ll get through this together, Daniel!_

“Daniel, are you a sinner?”

“Yes,” her father figure agreed, quiet and difficult to hear.

_He doesn’t want to do this!_

The little bastard Eli put the pressure on even greater.

“The Lord can’t hear you, Daniel! Say it to him. Go ahead and speak to him. It’s all right.”

“Yes,” Daniel played along, raising his voice that the acoustics of the auditorium amplified so all could hear, including a God who pretended to be deaf for the occasion.

Eli placed a hand of false reassurance upon Daniel and his little sister wanted to kick him in the shins for being cocky enough to touch him. Then he struck a low blow:

“Down on your knees. Pray to him.” Anger fired up within the girl when she saw the aggrieved grimace crossing Daniel’s face as he complied, his bad leg agonizing him. Fully aware of Daniel’s lameness, Eli callously exploited the Achilles' heel. “Look up to the sky and say it.”

Eli, the imposture, was milking this for all that it was worth.

Daniel played along with the charade, looked directly at Eli and asked, “What do you want me to say?”

It was impossible for the child to be more proud of him. Defiant even when he knew he was not going to win. The question was ignored as Eli paced around his victim, a wildcat teasing its prey.

“Daniel, you’ve come here and you’ve brought good and wealth, but you have also brought your bad habits as a backslider,” Eli lashed out, embellishing and airing all the dirty laundry he felt should be public information. “You’ve lusted after women and you have abandoned your child.” The mortal blow. “Your child, that you raised, you have abandoned all because he was sick and you have sinned. So say it now. I am a sinner.”

Tenacity held the accused sinner’s head high; occasionally his gaze dropped to the floor, his handsome face twisted in abstinence of retaliation. Eli had him backed into a corner, triggering his inherent instinct to fight his way out.

_Never corner an animal, Eli, you’re inviting trouble!_

“I am a sinner,” Daniel muttered with annoyance.

“Say it _louder_!”

Mary matched Daniel’s furnace-hot wrath and scooted to the edge of the pew, propping her head up with an arm across the back of the one in front where Daniel had vacated only moments ago. Nobody’s eyes left the humiliating scenario on stage as avid theatre-goers would anticipate a climatic final act. The breath of every man, woman and child in the church was imprisoned within their chests, waiting to see what happened next in the debasement of the nonconformist who swore his unctuous God was mightier than their heavenly one yet who now knelt at their God’s feet to atone for his wrongs. It was an intriguing upheaval and each individual person garnered a wicked desire to put this man in his place. Little Boston had sold its soul to Daniel Plainview but now the roles were reversed it was Plainview who groveled for the sale of his soul before Little Boston.

“I am a sinner,” Daniel conformed, determined to keep his head high.

“I am a sinner!” accentuated Eli. “ _Louder_ , Daniel! _I am a sinner_!”

Daniel’s patience was brittle and he looked as if he was about to detonate but he repeated the line again nevertheless. It still wasn’t enough to compensate for the degradation of the mud bath weeks ago. Humiliation was a priceless poison dart: Daniel had castrated Eli in front of the roughnecks and now the ambitious preacher wanted to in turn emasculate his rival in front of his congregation. But her greatest relief was in knowing Eli’s upper hand would never last for long because Daniel was beyond the man Eli ever hoped to come close to being. And maybe that was another reason he had so much hatred for her adopted father.

“I am sorry, Lord!” goaded the preacher.

“I am sorry, Lord.”

“I want the blood!”

“I want the blood.”

“You have abandoned your child,” pressed Eli, punctuating the words with disgust for the man on his knees before him.

H.W. was a prohibited topic and Daniel had warned Eli once to take care in what he said about the boy. Mention of his son’s name was equivalent to baiting a starving dog with fresh meat and Eli had foolishly offered his own flesh. Yet the hurting father figure repeated the line and checked his tranquil rage. It was known precisely where Daniel was the weakest and the vampiric Eli drew blood to invoke the feeding frenzy.

“I have abandoned my child,” Daniel repeated, voice faltering. Already labeled a blackguard before every discriminate eye, being a negligent father was the one thing he did not want others to believe him to be because it was not true in the least. An immaculate reputation as a father was the one thing that mattered more to him than oil and power. Of all the lies that passed from his lips with the serpent’s ease, this was the incurable wound.

“I will _never_ backslide!”

“I will never backslide.”

 _Enough, Eli, you’ve_ made _your point!_ Damn _you! Leave him alone!_

“I was lost, but now I’m found!”

“I was lost, but now I’m found.”

Daniel rebounded from the punishment but Eli went for the jugular a second time.

“I have abandoned my child,” the unholy vessel pressed harder on the bruise.

The fingernails of Mary’s right hand clawed the wood of the pew she leaned on while their mirrored left handed ones sank into the corpulent part of Ruth’s hand beneath her thumb. There was never a more lethal silence as this monumental but brief one in which the prospector passed her brother an hostile glare unsurpassed by any other preceding it. Never before had Mary witnessed such acidic emotion transmitted from one person to another and it burnt a hole through her body even though she was not the direct recipient. She did not want to imagine how it made Eli feel. The grueling crescent tension in the room was as stifling as the summer heat because of it.

Steadfast, Eli hissed, “Say it! _Say it!!_ ”

“I abandoned my child,” Daniel snarled.

“ _Say it louder!_ ” scathed the inspired, abrasive cleric, taking an obscene enjoyment of the worst possible schadenfreude against a doting parent. “ _Say it_ louder!”

Whereas he previously did not want to give his enemy the satisfaction of riling him up, love eclipsed arrogance when H.W. was not the only thing Daniel abandoned as the mercurial oil man’s infamous temper at last exploded, yet still controlled enough to not be in the format Mary had anticipated.

“ _I’VE ABANDONED MY CHILD!_ ” roared Daniel at the top of his lungs, making Mary choke on a sob and Ruth squeeze her hand. “ _I’VE ABANDONED MY CHILD! I’VE ABANDONED MY BOY!!_ ”

The inquisitorial torture he underwent fractured her too and she whimpered, holding her breath until she turned crimson and her lungs ached, stealthily wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with the end of her sleeve. Breaking Daniel wasn’t rewarding enough for Eli. He wanted to further dismantle the already crumbling man, bend him to his will to claim victory before everyone, to make Daniel look like the bitch that he himself was and Mary wanted to put her eyes out at the blasphemy of the affair.

Not yet finished with making an example of the prospector, Eli thus delivered the coup de grace.

“Now beg for the blood!” he demanded.

Sickened by the everlasting ordeal, the beaten angel was in no mood for being toyed with.

“Just give me the blood, Eli! Let me get out of here! Give me the blood, Lord, and let me get away!”

“Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

“Yes, I do.”

Then, with a high pitched shriek of _“Get out of here, devil!”_ that scared Mary, the puritanical tyrant laid an open handed slap hard across Daniel’s face, rendering the verbal confession short shrift.

She flinched and, as the entire church erupted into a chaotic revival, buried her face into the bend of her elbow to shield herself from Eli’s flamboyant violation of the man she cared about most in the world. This was not a baptism or a welcoming into the parishioners, it was a desecration. Each sharp slap across Daniel’s face maimed her soul but the sounds could not be blocked, distinct even amid the uproar.

“Out, devil!” Eli disparaged in a harpy’s screech. “Out, sin!”

The crack of another strike sent her into tears. Then her mood brightened as a ray of sun emerged through thick, black clouds when, amongst the disarray, she heard Daniel’s voice sarcastically urging Eli to continue delivering the abuse with mocking of his own. He would _not_ recoil, not physically, not mentally. He was a warrior, a fighter who refused to go down no matter how trodden he was.

“Let me feel the power of the Lord, Eli!”

“Do you accept the Church of the Third Revelation as your spiritual guide?!”

“Where is your Lord, Eli?!”

“Get _out_ of here, ghost!! Get out!! Go back to where you belong!!”

“Where is he?! There he is!”

Each sentence was accentuated with another anointing slap and every one made Mary recoil until she was outright bawling, her face hidden from the rest of the room. Aware of what effect this spectacle was having on her younger sister, Ruth slid closer, securing an arm around her quaking shoulder.

“It’s OK, Mary,” Ruth murmured in her ear. “He’ll be all right. He can take it. You know he can.”

It mattered not. A gross misconception was to believe Daniel was not man enough to take it. Just because he was man enough to take it did not mean she wanted to bear witness to a vicious scavenger picking his bones clean. She did not want to watch it, or for him to undergo it at all. There was nothing she wanted more than to run on stage, shove Eli away and return his just desserts in the same cruel manner he was handling Daniel. She _hated_ Eli. She wished he was dead. Furthermore, she wished _she_ would be the one to kill him.

“Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” Eli pontificated again.

“Yes, I do,” Daniel answered loud and clear.

“It’s over, Mary,” Ruth informed very quietly into her ear. “It’s over.”

Sniffling, Mary erased the proof of her upset with the greatest discretion then raised her eyes in time to see Bandy pour the baptismal holy water over Daniel’s backwards tilted head as Abel burst into song. Contrary to popular opinion the town was apt to expect, Daniel was not set aflame like a demon upon contact with the holy water. Besmeared alike by defamation and holy water, Daniel survived Eli’s brutal insensitivity and possessed a manner of victory nevertheless.

_“Would you be free from the burden of sin? There’s power in the blood…”_

A mutinous glowering message was sent to her father while she wished he would stop singing because he was tone deaf and his voice most unpleasant. By the time her eyes rested back on Daniel he was struggling to stand, encumbered by the extensive time on his knees. When he finally succeeded, he turned to the simon-pure Eli whose nerve drained from him as he reverted to his cowardly truth. Failed by this unforeseen conflict that in retrospect was obvious, the wolf had not anticipated his sacrificial lamb to grow horns and strike back as a ram. The oil man was supposed to leave the stage quietly, accepting his defeat, or at least that was the presentiment the preacher had played out in his mind. Things never go as planned, however, and Daniel extended a hand which a terrified Eli reluctantly accepted in a handshake, the prospector drawing close to his enemy and muttering something meant only for Eli’s ears. Whatever it was paled her brother’s face as white as chalk.

Exhausted, Daniel departed from Eli and drifted back to his seat in a disassociated state through the crowded auditorium of church servants blessing him with hosannas, praises and pats on the back, shoulders or arms. Every person present wanted to welcome him into the fold and strove to do so. At the end of the line, mother rose and embraced him before he finally was free to sit down.

Jealous that the attention the browbeaten Daniel was receiving meant all eyes were turned away from him, Eli sought to recapture their interest.

“That’s enough, that’s enough now,” he took command again with a regained grandiloquent posture. “He must take the spirit in on his own. We have a new member.”

Another round of hallelujahs and amens were proclaimed but Mary could wait no longer. Ignoring protocol and certain consequences, she threw her arms around his neck, nestled her face against him and held him tight. The cheek struck by Eli was an angry cherry hue that burnt from the heat of her brother’s fury and she wanted to extinguish the fire in that cheek with her kisses. Life was not worth living without risk, she declared in her head before pressing her lips gently against the ruddy hand print. Downtrodden and deconstructed but purportedly cleansed of his evil, Daniel had been laid bare and exposed like a freak of nature inside a circus tent for everyone to see.

“My sweet Mary,” he whispered, covering her hand with his comforting one. “My sweet, precious Mary. I love you so much.”

“I love you,” she returned as Eli hammered another nail in the coffin by publicly mentioning the promised five thousand Daniel agreed to give him originally and already so long ago.

Neither she nor Daniel wasted any more precious time listening to him. Lost in their own world, they were the only two people in existence. Nothing else mattered except the feel of his clean skin, its permanent scent of oil, and his lips against her forehead. Parting from his hold and unwrapping her arms from around him was out of the question.

“I love you so much,” she professed, choking back more tears. “I hate him for this.”

“Don’t cry, shh! We’ll talk later.”

Their voices were at an extreme low so that they could hear only each other but Mary’s biological father was bothered by her very public display of affection for a man only recently saved, one who had an assumed unnatural love for the girl no less.

“Sit down, Mary,” Abel instructed strictly, tugging her sleeve to obtain her attention. “You’re disturbing Mr. Plainview and the rest of the congregation.”

“Do as he says,” Daniel told her softly. “We’ll talk later. Be a good girl. For me.”

Out of venerated deference, Mary yielded not to Abel but to Daniel and left her foster father with open unwillingness. There was nothing she would not do for her _true_ father. She always abided by his word. Let everyone else draw their own conclusions, good or bad. If her rashness in supporting him brought others to believe he was a snake in human guise, then she drew her own verdict: Eden must have been a boring place before that serpent showed up.


	10. X. Caught Between

**X. Caught Between**

Unqualified as Eli was to pass judgment, his flaying of Daniel’s soul left Mary’s father figure as open and vulnerable as she’d ever seen him. Daniel’s baptism of fire reinforced Eli’s revelry in his foe’s latest misery. Withdrawn and wistful as he walked with her later on the night of his baptismal day, Daniel led her to the shore where they sat in reverential quiet. A pensive gaze at him relayed her yearning to be held by him but he only stared out across the truculent aquatic plains.

Bilked of familial privileges despite standing at his side, she felt his quiet invalidation of her was unfair. _She_ wasn’t the one who did him wrong. _She_ wanted to prevent it, to rush to his side, hell, she wanted to _murder_ her own brother in his defense! Blood was still blood and spilling that of a brother solidified where her loyalties were. Why was he unable to see that? His stolid reverie, not unreasonable, disturbed her, because if he didn’t want to talk then she shouldn’t have been invited. Of course she understood his need of recovery from the disgrace the baptism painted him with but he needed to at least _look in her direction_ for her mood to improve, regardless of the summons for her to be at his side so that _he_ could feel better.

She supposed her mere presence was meant to provide consolation and that she had no real need to say anything. As well as she knew him, he knew himself best. Perhaps sitting near him _was_ enough for him despite her urge to do more. Wanting to do anything she could and still respect his need for collected silence, she covered his hand with hers, cracking his disconnected reserve and earning a smile from him. But that was all he could give her for the time being.

The good that turned out of the open disgrace was that the demonized oil prospector had become acquitted in the town’s belief. The effacing mess had shrived him of the terrible wrongs he was responsible for and martyred him. Afterwards, a handful of the womenfolk began spreading word that the rough baptism might’ve been too much for a parent who’d too recently dealt with a family tragedy.

While the town was steeped in its see-sawing nastiness, one good aspect was that Eli began traveling on missions to spread the message of the Third Revelation. Spread across California at various locations, the ambitious preacher was eager to infect with his pious toxin far and wide, trusting that he had effectively debunked any doubt of Daniel’s twisted trickery and had planted the ferocious seed against his enemy in the hearts of his friends and that they would carry out his work in his absence. To his youngest sister, these days were a vacation and each time he went she’d hoped it was for good. She was never that lucky and when Eli returned, Daniel also suffered.

Days passed into weeks and nothing changed. The damage to his willful strength of character was extensive, the use of H.W. as a weapon against him had perforated his soul to its core. The unconscionable public excavation of his private affairs left the vibrant man withered by the weight of his misgivings. That even the Devil gets his comeuppance before the Lord and Daniel Plainview was the Devil was Eli’s resounding message to all. With every one of his secret, dirty flaws exposed by the forced contrition, even his men began to doubt his competence as a person thereafter.

In too short an amount of time, because Eli was the ultimate arbiter of the land, Little Boston forgot that they had exonerated Daniel and returned to its bitter renouncements of him yet he still did not care. They were drowned out with the sorrows of his heart, the whiskey in his flask and the hard work he threw himself into in meticulous travail as if the salty sweat of his efforts would purify what bothered him. H.W. had been the core of Daniel’s existence. The soul of the man was gone with the little boy he’d voluntarily left behind.

For Mary it was difficult to leave behind what Daniel was to her. Imperfect or not, he was her rock, her great oak, her angel whose arrival was so poignant in her life. A personification of the North Star, he was a reliable constant in her life, an unfaltering guide out of her hell, forged from pure light and goodness despite the grievances others had with him. He was an embodiment of strength and to purge that image from her mind because he exhibited human frailty was deplorable. No matter how they tried to shatter him, his spirit refused to be brought down, vulcanized in his despondency despite their persistence to rip him apart. However, that strength was a spider web’s thread she worried would snap, notwithstanding his determined pride to hide it. After all, the Grand Canyon was created by centuries upon centuries of water whittling it down to form what it is today. How much more could he take? What would happen to her if they succeeded in breaking him? With her interest in him created by a timeless need, she was beholden to him and bore the stigma of a limitless, unconditional love for the man who had delivered her from certain evil. Perhaps it _was_ a convoluted delusion but it worked for her and if it was fictitious then she needed the lie to make life more tolerable to live. An underprivileged life with a monster God was not any kind of life. Someone forgot to let Eli in on a little secret: fearful veneration for a God was meaningless compared with the respectful veneration for a father. And her father was Daniel Plainview.

Father figure and surrogate daughter continued to honor their daily pilgrimages to the shore. An impenetrable veil of quiet through which she could see no emotion parted them but she allotted him the time he needed. One evening in the cool, dim twilight the grave, inscrutable silence crumbled when, while fixated on the point where ocean blended with sky, he spoke.

“I have a surprise for you,” he disclosed, piquing her immediate interest. “But you’ll have to wait. It arrives tomorrow evening.”

“What is it?’ she asked with great interest, blazing with exhilaration for the surprise and the words she patiently waited weeks to hear.

“If I told you then it wouldn’t be a surprise,” he teased. “Come to my office at six o’ clock and it will be waiting for you.” Then under his breath: “Things will be different this time.”

Curious about what he meant, she didn’t say anything because nothing would persuade him to let her in on the secret until he meant to unveil it to her.

Guesses of what it could be were wild in her mind all night. Expensive gifts to rile her family’s anger was his modus operandi. Daniel’s inveterate gift-giving was never done fully out of love for her but also to get a rise more out of Eli than father, who strangely retracted his interest from any and all things Plainview. This new gift was only a nasty comeback for the baptism, and when seen from that aspect it disappointed her enough for her to want to refuse the gesture.

 _He loves you, Mary, you_ know _he does. Don’t fret so much about his ulterior motives, you_ enjoy _how he makes Eli and father mad just as much as he enjoys_ making _them mad!_

The day after could not zoom away fast enough. Her time was spent working chores at the farm, knowing that Daniel was out with the new pipeline and needed to be undisturbed. She restlessly ambled around, her mind preoccupied with work and checking the hours frequently. When six o’ clock chimed, Mary unleashed the intractable thrill she’d controlled the whole day as she ran posthaste all the way to the office. Already outside, Daniel was smoking his pipe and staring in the direction of the farmhouse as if guiding her path with his eyes.

“Mary!” he greeted with notable happiness. “As punctual as the sunrise! That’s good. Let’s go on inside and see what’s waiting for you, shall we?”

She nodded then followed him upstairs, into the office, her mind rife with numerous possibilities. Anything could have been waiting for her, _anything_ , and she was prepared for that anything except for what was actually there. The revered heir to the Plainview fortune, none other than H.W. himself, sat in a chair with perfect posture, their eyes meeting straight away. A fresh glow encompassed her.

“H.W.!” she expelled, rushing to the boy who rose to greet her.

Daniel’s wide smile was merry as the children genially embraced.

“I _missed_ you!” she clamored vainly, instantly remembering the futility of speech.

She did not care that it was a worthless announcement, not when its truth brought joy. Adding his own delight, Daniel stooped down to sweep them into his arms.

“My family is reunited,” he declared, probably affirming for his own benefit. “Nothing will ever come between us again. _Nothing_.”

First he kissed Mary then H.W., gave them a constricting squeeze of affection, then urged, “Run off and play. Reacquaint yourselves. I have business to discuss with Mr. Reynolds.”

Men’s business again, only this time she did not mind because she had her own business to take care of. Freeing herself from the embrace, Mary noticed for the first time the tall, thin man in the corner who had evidently arrived with H.W. and whom she surmised was his teacher. Taking her playmate’s hand, she sprinted with him away from the office.

In the days that followed, she and her long-missed friend reconnected with great gusto. The boy’s homecoming was unwelcomed by a frowning Eli, furious that his hopes that H.W. would be gone forever were dashed away, showing what poor conception the holy man had for a father’s love. But the coward remained quiet and glowered hatefully at the felicitous children, perhaps considering the divine purpose of the baptism a reification of his God for Daniel in the mongoose and cobra game they played. Although the prospector did not strike back for his ruinous baptism as was anticipated, their war was far from over.

The dismay of the Third Revelation was how short-lived Daniel’s salvation was: after H.W. returned, so did the oil man’s condemnatory indifferent habits. His indulgent corruptions were irreversible and he could not be saved after all, they wrote off. Their discouragement didn’t deprive her of any time with the Plainviews. On the contrary, the upside was she spent _more_ time with them. Having fallen ill with consumption over the winter, Abel accumulated an everlasting cough that robbed the household of sleep for most of the night. Full recovery was not expected and the family prepared for adjustments to accommodate their head of household but he was more moribund with every passing day. This came under Daniel’s attention and the Sunday family was shocked when he called on mother that Saturday with a proposition.

“Mrs Sunday,” he addressed blithely, removing his hat in proper respect. “May I speak to you in private? Perhaps outside where we can be alone?”

“Of course, Mr Plainview,” she acceded, stepping out to join him.

Mary pressed against the window behind the drapes so she couldn’t be seen; father was in bed trying to catch up on sleep lost by a nasty coughing fit earlier that day.

“I heard your husband is ill,” Daniel summarized.

“Yes,” mother admitted. “It appears his time to return to the Lord is drawing near.”

Daniel cleared his throat.

“Yes, well, the truth is Mary isn’t getting enough rest and, as you know, I’ve taken her under my wing and have been teaching her the business. She’s an excellent student, might I add, and a promising businesswoman.”

“I always knew that she was smart. Her and her brother Paul, that is. They used to spend hours reading together while tending the goats.”

“Then I’m sure you’re reasonable enough to understand that she can’t learn if she’s unable to sleep at night. Your husband won’t stop coughing…”

“He can’t help it, Mr Plainview…”

“I’ve come to collect Mary’s things.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“We have room at the cottage and she’s going to move in so she can rest properly and concentrate better on her studies. Sleep is imperative for a sharp mind. Your husband’s interference with her sleep is taking its toll. I can’t have that. Her future is riding on this, Mrs Sunday. She’s being groomed for better things than living out a death sentence as a wife to anybody in this town.”

“Well, I don’t know how my husband…”

“He has enough troubling his mind and having Mary out of the way will be less worry for him.”

The two negotiated the girl’s emancipation for a protracted time before mother consented out of what was best for Mary and the girl swooned with elation. Her greatest dream was realized! She was going to _live_ with Daniel! The door swung inward and both adults entered as she threw herself across the room in a lame attempt to hide that she’d been eavesdropping.

“Fetch what you need, Mary,” mother instructed, “you’ll be with Mr Plainview during the week. But on the weekends the arrangement is that you will be back here with the family.”

Knowing she would want for nothing at the cottage, the rhapsodic girl packed the bare necessities, including the ledger where she practiced her math and the journal into which her daily thoughts were written then rushed back to where the adults waited. Kissing mother farewell, she grasped Daniel’s proffered hand and walked with him through the dark desert and back to the cottage, he relieving her of the bundled possessions.

The already late hour found the Plainview cottage in its nocturnal settle upon their arrival. H.W., drunk on goat’s milk and whiskey, was asleep in his bed like he’d never left. George sat up in the bed formerly occupied by Henry, reading a novel with a cover so battered the title was indecipherable. Daniel’s bed was already turned down and waiting for her in blatant testimony of his confidence that he would once again get what he wanted, uncontested.

“Go on,” Daniel urged softly in conscious effort to not wake his son. “Get yourself ready for bed. You’ll be up bright and early.”

“Where will _you_ sleep?” she asked, the answer known but asked out of politeness any way.

“Don’t worry about me, sweet Mary,” he contended softly. “I’ll be fine. Thank you for your concern. Now get some rest.”

Carrying out his demands, she felt as if she was at long last home.

The arrangement Daniel made with mother was honored when Mary went home to the Sundays over the weekend. As customary, the family planned on attending church service together but the second she stepped inside the house she was greeted by a different unfolding event other than church preparation. Father had died the night before.

At first she was numb, lobotomized by what was long foreseen. Stationery, she didn’t know how to react; what to say or do were lost to her. When she finally sustained an emotion, Mary was dumbfounded that it was relief. There was no sorrow, not even joy. Just a great levity akin to a hunted wild animal safe in its den after being freed from a hunter’s trap. Her emotional pause agitated a raw nerve in Eli who jarred her from her reverie, grounding her spirit from its flight.

“It’s all your fault, Mary,” he diagnosed when he espied her by the corral trying to regroup. “He found out that you left his house in favor of that heathen Plainview’s. After that, things got worse and worse and we have you to blame, little Mary, the Plainview whore.”

Daniel’s protection always offered her impunity from the repercussions of fighting back, yet this was the first time she braved taking advantage of it. Now filled with tears and rage, newfound temerity obligated Mary to no longer withstand any of Eli’s guff and, inertia broken, slapped him hard across the face before storming away. She stomped into a cluster of gnarled trees and wild grass, burrowed down with her knees drawn to her chin, buried her face into her folded arms and wept. Abel Sunday was still her father if by no other means than blood and her tie to him opened a gaping wound with his death, a wound Eli deepened with slanderous words. Death was never a wanted solution, even if the deceased was a cruel miscreant.

A crunch from the dry foliage drew her attention as H.W. traipsed through the tangle of wild grass. His eyes fell on her but the joy was vanquished from them when he noticed that her face was red and puffy from crying. Their gazes locked for a brief moment before he seated himself on the ground beside her.

Communication by no other means than presence was necessary: his nearness solaced her and if she knew how to sign her predicament to him she would have told him the story. But she didn’t and made up for it by taking his hand in hers. A smile between them was shared then she proceeded to stare into another direction. Moments later he released her hand, scooting closer against her with a benevolent arm across her shoulders. The pair enjoyed each other’s company in tranquility and Mary’s soul healed in volumes. Under the weight of her burdens, she was content in this haven of solitude with H.W. and, rendered exhausted from her fit of weeping, slipped into sleep.

The sweet scent of cherry tobacco wafted into her dreams, a wraith beckoning her eyes open. Twilight lowered the curtain of night over evening sky and H.W. was still beside her in an identical state of slumber. The new addition to the thicket was Daniel, sitting with his back against the tree, smoking his pipe. His smile was gentle as he reached out to coax her to his side. She crawled over and he sat her on his lap.

“Are you all right?” he inquired quietly.

“Yes,” she squeaked, nodding.

“I heard about what happened. I’m so sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter. He wasn’t much of a father any way.”

“Father enough for his death to affect you. It shouldn’t but I suppose you can’t help that it does. Don’t forget that you have me and you have H.W. and you always will.”

“I won’t.”

She nestled against his chest and cried, wetting through his shirt with a fount of tears. He rubbed her arm and stroked her back, consoling her to the best of his ability.

“That’s enough, Mary, that’s enough. He isn’t worth a single one of those tears and you know it. Let’s go home and put a hot meal into you two. Then you can do something productive.”

Bed time was a struggle later as the child appealed to Daniel to sleep with her in the bed so that his arms would deflect against nightmares of death and condemnation. Hesitant to submit, he argued and explained its inappropriateness but to no avail: she was a little girl in desperate search for rescue, having lost a significant but troublesome part of her life. Bereaved and lamenting, she beseeched him harder until his eroded sympathies bested him and his willpower caved. Holding him back with the ferity of her need, she buried herself against his warm body. In that moment an essential understanding transferred between them through their bodily contact: unquestionable now was the authenticity of her paternity, verified by the actions of he who lay beside her and whose arms cradled her, never by the man whose flesh she shared but would be shortly interred in the ground.

In a conciliatory effort, Daniel ceased operations on the day of Abel’s funeral. He came for the procession and service for the purpose of standing at his adopted daughter’s side as solace and nothing more. The apathetic numbness from the previous day returned to the young girl staring entranced with blank eyes into the final resting place where Abel’s casket was lowered. The desensitized feeling heightened until her spirit disconnected from her body and hovered above herself, looking down upon her family, loved ones and enemies alike. Then, as if the gravity of the grave was sucking her in or Abel was drawing her down into it to take her with him, her soul crashed earthbound back into her robing flesh. The compression of the grave lifted, the rejoining of soul to body so strong that she startled and required Daniel’s steadying hand to prevent her from falling. She stayed close to him, dismaying Eli who noticed that mother and Ruth also huddled beside the heathen prospector as if he had automatically assumed Abel’s role of head of household, a role rightfully inherited by Eli himself. Daniel spoke when spoken to and was terse as prevention of anyone speaking to him. When the service concluded, the family broke apart: Ruth was tended to by her sweetheart Matthew Atkins while Eli, fresh from his latest mission and home to deliver the eulogy, remained with mother. The sworn foes nodded obligatory acknowledgment of each other out of reverence for the dead, nothing more.

After the affair ended and Abel Sunday was in the ground, Daniel advised Mary to spend time with the Sundays for as long as she needed. Overhearing this, Eli thanked Daniel for being considerate to the situation but the oil man said nothing back. Finished altogether, he simply led H.W. away from the scene.

For a majority of the week, Mary stayed with mother and Ruth, learning that her prominent relief was shared by her fellow Sunday females. Death had acquitted them from domestic tyranny but a collective lifetime of duress made it difficult for them to believe it. Mother expressed an overabundance of sentiment and Ruth’s content immersions into her boyfriend were a reticence of what Mary wore openly. The deadened emotions, expired long before the family patriarch, and the untethered relief churned with paranoia on the first night when Mary recounted the sensation of being vacuumed into the grave. Father did not want her to be free! He blamed her for his death and planned to drag her to Hell with him! Imaginings that the other side of father’s grave wanted to claim her were dispelled only by the memory of what it was like to be in Daniel’s arms. Focused on her father figure as sanctuary, the terror was short lived.

The only one broken by serious mourning was Eli. His disapproving scowls and critical observations were ignored whenever he joined them from the church or the shack he resided in behind the main house…the shack he once shared with Paul. She strove to evade being in the same vicinity as Eli so their irritation with each other would not further upset mother. Matthew often stole Ruth away to chase the loss from her mind and thus became the lone bright spot in the Sunday homestead as mother professed that wedding plans would be announced.

Another sensitive matter arose because of the funeral: the torment of Paul’s whereabouts and how they could locate him to at least wire information of father’s death. Alas, Paul was well-hidden, the girl knew, and wouldn’t be found unless he wanted to be. Eli took advantage of the emotionally maimed family to smear more libel on his twin’s name. It was as natural to the cleric as spreading butter on a slice of bread, debunking the myth that twins were always ensnared in deep bonds of brotherhood as if one person. The letter she’d written to her lost and found and lost again brother had been mailed by Daniel long before father’s death but neither had received a response at any capacity. Unable to argue against Eli’s allegation that Paul forfeited his familial rights the day he vanished without so much as a good-bye, Mary maintained her silence, keeping a timeless promise of loyalty. Nothing was done in the end since nobody knew where to start looking for the estranged Sunday except for Daniel and he was not telling. The pull of blood would give Paul a gut feeling about the death and he would know without being told, Mary believed. That was the gift and the curse of being bound by claret.

Months passed and Ruth and Matthew eventually made their matrimonial intentions known, as mother predicted, shifting the period of sorrow to a celebratory one. Yet _two_ romances sweetened time’s passage. Attention to detail was needless to notice the flourishing relationship between H.W. and Mary. She followed him wherever he went, as solicitous to master sign language from the boy and his tutor as she was to master the oil business from Daniel. Picking up on it quickly, she was in a matter of a few days able to communicate with her dear friend well enough without George’s assistance.

The want of being independently conversant with H.W. made her take troubling notice of Daniel’s neglect to learn sign language himself. He monitored George and the children laughing at jokes and learning from each other with a displeased expression for being kept out of the circle. His exclusion was a tragedy she abhorred to watch continue. Why he did not wish to know how to sign a single word or at least an _I love you_ was a frustrating question mark. On one of her evening walks with him she voiced her pity through an offer to teach him how to sign so that he might be included but it was declined and Daniel entrusted her to tell him of any misdeeds that occurred unbeknownst to him.

Months progressed into years and much occurred in Little Boston. Ruth and Matthew set their wedding date and the entire town participated in preparations for the big day. The only other time when Mary saw her neighbors work so diligently was when Daniel first arrived and they were ready to shrug off the fin-de-siècle nuances of the old century and start fresh with his promises in the new. The Plainviews, too, were on the verge of change. The arrangement Daniel had made with Union Oil reaped a generous profit for the Plainviews and it was spent on two things. One of them was Daniel’s gluttonous addiction to procuring new leases. Never-ending, it took Mary’s concept of him being a king and raised it to a staggering degree as the exorbitant amounts of embezzled land came to include his ownership of everything that could be seen for miles and beyond. The second was an ostentatious mansion that he’d blueprinted for construction near the shore, relieving Eli who couldn’t wait to rid the tycoon from his sight. To the shock of the town, Mary kept her place in the Plainview cottage even after Abel’s death, spitting in the face of traditions dictating what a good daughter ought to do. Word got out that it was intended for her to live at the finished mansion as well, forever labelling her the bad seed.

While Mary wore the scarlet letter, Eli still brandished his halo of flies. The ambitious holy man closed his own deal while on one of his missions: WLRD radio in Los Angeles offered to air his sermons nationally, igniting the dollar sign pupils of Eli’s eyes with rapacious hellfire, excused with the endued faculty to reach more souls with his gift. Why shouldn’t a radio station desire to employ Eli? The only gift the self-righteous young man had was that of the gab, voluble holy rolling and sanctimonious tripe flowing effortlessly off his tongue. He was certainly a perfect candidate for radio broadcasting. Each time Eli returned home he was prettier and more polished than the last, walking with an arrogant swagger that encompassed his new aggrandized authority. Mary and H.W. made fun of him behind his back, branding him a worst opportunist than the man he’d scorned for the past few tumultuous years. The new radio contract may have enabled him to reach more souls but to them he was the same pretentious lickspittle he had always been, if not worse.

Nor did distance and time stop Eli from insulting Daniel. To Mary’s horror he armed his radio program with bloviated defamation toward her father figure on a wide spread public level, expecting the miles between them to provide a cushy buffer. The recurrence of the feud came on a day when Daniel was in a rare good mood. Had they not coincidentally been in the general store at that precise moment they would’ve never themselves heard it. The broadcasts streamed from the radios of most Little Boston households each time one aired, the town boasting its pride in their successful favorite son, but the cottage was isolated far from the town so that they never heard a syllable of the sermons. Old man Tucker, who owned and ran the general store, had Eli’s program tuned in before they entered, filling the room with an abusive rant about an oil prospector whose ambition robbed a small town blind. No names were mentioned in the malicious allegory but there didn’t need to be. Tucker pretended not to hear but arranged their supplies in a box while giving sideways glances at Daniel the entire time. Anger radiated through Daniel’s hardened eyes and a painfully clenched jaw and the girl wondered how the pressure didn’t fracture his teeth. She inserted a small comforting hand into his, smiling when he peered at her. The heat in his eyes abated and, thanking Tucker, he folded the box into his arm and exited the store with a dignity that raised rather than collapsed. A reprisal of the bad blood had been instigated.

There was a strange distraction to Eli’s verbal assaults, however, and it was called puberty. Transformations multiplied as womanhood set upon Mary at the tender but less innocent age of eleven. Reminiscent of a phoenix bursting anew from flame and brimstone, her body changed in the way that every young woman’s body does: the baby fat slimmed away to leanness, her hips widened, waist narrowed and breasts developed. Then there was the dramatic arrival of the blood, which kindly waited until she was playing with H.W. in the seclusion of the hills to inconveniently humiliate her. An excruciating cramp, a dizzying vertigo and a gush of blood accompanied the feeling of debasement, sending a terrified H.W. racing for help. Daniel, Fletcher and George all answered his hectic, silent plea, each panicked and armed against an expected mountain lion or some other starving predator. Instead they discovered her standing distraught with the evidence of womanhood running in rivulets down her leg, staining through her dress. The men relaxed, relieved by their familiarity of the event. Confused and nauseous, Mary grew light-headed and collapsed in a faint. Had Daniel not been quick to respond, she would have hit the ground rather than tumble into his arms. Ever the white knight for her, he carried her limp figure to the Sunday ranch where she awakened moments after, finding mother and Ruth hovering above her. Cleaned up and feeling better, she sipped hot tea with the other Sunday women who explained nature’s course with her in a long, uncomfortable talk. Later she learned that her outrageous predicament earned H.W. a similar discussion with Daniel. Nothing was more embarrassing for the young woman and facing the men again was an excruciating difficulty.

Trapped awkwardly between child and woman, she quickly attracted the eye of almost every roughneck in the fields. Although he never mocked her physical appearance and kept his gentleman composure, H.W. teased her about their attentions but she retaliated with notice that his body was altering just as much as hers was. So, too, did their childish pastimes change as they abandoned hide-and-seek to hold hands during long leisurely walks.

On Ruth and Matthew’s wedding day, an invited Daniel chose not to attend but purchased a dress for Mary that scandalously rivaled the wedding gown with its beauty and accentuation of her new curves. Other attendees grumbled under their breath that she was a puppet for Daniel who meant for his pet to steal attention from the bride to whom all eyes rightfully belonged. Hearing this added guilt to her conscience; she felt pretty until then and her personal intentions for agreeing to wear the gown were purely to lift her self-esteem. She supposed in essence they were right in that Daniel wanted to debut something else, however little she realized it at the time. H.W., insisting that George take the day off since Mary could interpret for him, went as her date and Eli did not closet his disgust. His hope was that change of life would wise his sister up to home-grown choices in men and rend her apart from her childhood friend rather than bonding her tighter with him. Nor could he conceal his disapproval when mother commented that there would be a second wedding at the rate the youngsters were going.

Not wanting to spoil Ruth’s day, Mary and H.W. respectfully sustained their quietness, inflaming Eli who wanted to provoke their tempers to camouflage his own. With an exaggerated flourish of showmanship that Eli had nothing on, H.W. presented Ruth with an envelope containing a card signed by Daniel on behalf of the Plainview family, taking the liberty to finish in a scrawling _Best of Wishes, Daniel, H.W. and Mary Plainview_. Ruth and mother treated his brash forwardness lightly but Eli steamed and not entirely due to the baking California heat. As if the iniquitous signature epithet on the card wasn’t enough, the preacher was incensed to the point of turning purple when H.W. handed Matthew a key, unveiling the real Plainview wedding gift to be a new automobile. Unexpected even by Mary, the meaning of the key could hardly be conveyed to the newlyweds because of her own shock. It became clear when she saw Eli’s tacit indignation, but to tell it would ruin the day’s blithesome spirit.

She knew both Daniel and Eli better than anyone else present. One was as calculating and methodical as the other, each wrestling for the upper hand, trying to take for himself. With the capital spoils of land and people unjustly divided between them, the rivals had to discover other ways to antagonize each other. It disappointed her that the seemingly kind gesture of the gift-giving concealed an uncharitable motive, likely originating from many years ago when Eli coveted Daniel’s automobile when he took him to the train station where it was parked. She remembered well how often Eli talked about the vehicle.

Petty jealousies were trivial to Mary, however. To her there were greater concerns. The downside of Ruth’s marriage struck the youngest Sunday at the evening reception amid the celebratory exultations vibrating the hills with song when the realization dawned upon her that her sister would not be returning to the ranch. Where would the newlyweds go and how far away? When would she see her sister again? Ruth would embark on a new life with Matthew, carried off by the wondrous horseless carriage Daniel supplied. A knight in shining armor had stepped out of a storybook and planned to whisk Ruth away, like Mary had always hoped and imagined that Daniel would do for her.

Matthew was a good man, there was no question about it to everyone else, but Mary’s experience proved to her that little was as it appeared on the surface. _Was_ Matthew a good man to the bone and core or was he deceptive as father surely had been when courting mother: sweet as licorice in public and a malevolent beast behind closed doors? Ruth never indicated the latter but mother had always been a good liar, truckling the girls way through father’s abuse and Mary wondered if her sister was as keen as she was in identifying violation or if she accepted it as normalcy. That was the greatest obstacle to happiness for women raised at the center of domestic violence. Matthew may try to present himself as Ruth’s white knight in public but Mary wondered what lay beneath the good guy exterior and refuted the notion that he could ever truly be one. The only hero a woman could ever truly have other than herself is her father. Everyone else was secondary. Guilt for spending most of her time with the Plainviews and missing out on discussing these issues with Ruth was a corrosive acid eating away at her conscience.

Inventory of these regrets dampened her mood and, seeing this, H.W. escorted her to a private location where they mapped out their own futures. Mary was ecstatic that she was included in what H.W. saw for himself. It was true: her childhood companion was emerging as something beyond friendship, definitive when he drew her near and pressed his lips tenderly to hers. In a surge of embarrassment, she withdrew from him, her scarlet face contrasting with her straw colored hair. Disappointed, H.W. dropped his gaze and kicked at a tree stump. Taught tenacity and quick action if there was anything she wanted, Mary seized the moment with the shrewdness from her business lessons with Daniel and the desire from her heart, tapped him on the shoulder to win his attention, then returned the kiss when he faced her. From then on Mary and H.W. were inseparable, apart only during her regular daily walk with Daniel.

But Daniel was a whole separate issue and took a different approach to her plunge into adulthood. While her body blossomed into full fledged womanhood, her new feminine allure was the topic for the roughnecks who were fired on the spot by the oil tycoon if any disparaging remarks about her sexuality reached his ears. This occurred only twice, thankfully, and to the pair of boldest offenders since Mary had established respect from the men beforehand by way of her thorough business acumen and proficiency. Pragmatic and their match in intelligence, which was applied in conversations with them, she was their darling, etching out of herself the image of a woman they admired and wanted for themselves. Many eligible bachelors among them courted her as she aged but their tokens and sweet nothings were brushed off with unwanted news that she was already spoken for. Of course despite their attempts to woo her away from the younger Plainview, they did not need to be told twice and respectfully obeyed her wishes. They fittingly heralded H.W. as the luckiest man in the world.

At least that was the _voiced_ opinion. Oftentimes she wondered if they didn’t suspect another story: to which Plainview did she truly belong? Any suspicion they may have had was cloaked with interjections that it was H.W. but the unwritten story was altogether dissimilar. Some were convinced that she was trying to raise trouble with Eli and indirectly get even with Abel for the hell they had put her through. Mistrust surfaced the antique superstition that it was unlucky to have a woman around working men, although they were careful not to directly say it for fear of their boss’s sentencing. Thus was borne a merger of reverence and fear of her, despite that they loved her too. Others believed that Daniel was hiding lust for the teenage girl under the guise of a make-believe romance with his more age-appropriate son. Their speculation bothered her not one bit. Her newfound unchristian interest in her beloved father figure was blatant and perhaps she titillated the silent gossip passed among the roughnecks only by sharp eyes just a little with the way her playful gestures toward the elder Plainview were laden with coquettish hints. Did those traces of blushes, light touches and sideways glances tell on her?

Busy with the expanding work in the church afforded to him by his new career in radio, Eli continued his own obstinate glares at his sister, whether she was in the company of a Plainview or not. She supposed he found her a distraction, an object there for no other purpose than to remind the men of their denied feral nature. In his fanatical opinion, she was a sin waiting to happen, if she hadn’t been already, and so malicious were his judgments that Mary was grateful to be rid of him when he left on a mission.

Other eyes also began to look at her in new ways. Daniel stared often with a softer longing quite different from the one reflecting his wish for her to be his own child. It was a love indisputably divided from father and daughter and widened into one of desire. _So the men aren’t entirely mistaken_ , she thought. The young woman was ecstatic of this unprecedented awakening because her love for Daniel intensified rather than diminished even as she delved into romantic involvement with his son.

Part of the reason behind the controversy was their continued private evening walks, Daniel citing them his only relaxation method. Their privacy was honored by H.W. who remained behind to tend the finances with Fletcher, George his constant and necessary companion. Soon Mary felt free enough to interlace her fingers with Daniel’s in the manner of a lover, a gesture he hesitated and refrained from reciprocating willingly for several days, doing his damnedest to ignore it every time. Then one evening his strong but slackened grip tightened around hers and his calloused thumb stroked the back of her hand. For Mary, the gesture was momentous, a sign of things to come.

When the calendar marked her sweet sixteenth, Mary asked for a small gathering comprised of the members from both the Plainview and Sunday families, including George and, of course, Fletcher at the cottage. An invitation was extended to Eli who was in Los Angeles to record an interview, but it was declined because the interview was to take place on that day but he hoped she understood and sent his wish for her to have a happy day. In truth, Mary was glad of his absence. At least then she’d be able to digest her food, which was a good thing. Mother baked her favorite yellow cake with fudge icing and the day was topped off when Ruth and Matthew made a trip to Little Boston to spend the day with her.

But the day’s surprises were far from over. Mary was watching mother ice the cake when she noticed the peculiar way Ruth watched her. Her glittering gaze was excited for something beyond a milestone birthday, the younger sister perceived, and it was another thing that incited her anxiety. She wasn’t at all surprised when, in a blur, Ruth rose from her chair, grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her out the door, telling mother that they’d be back.

Outside, Ruth burst into a breakneck run passed the confused men lounging on the porch, dragging her little sister behind her. But they kept running despite Mary’s gleeful protest. It was as if they were escaping back into a page of happier childhood, one that had always previously eluded them. Then suddenly the elder girl halted and threw her arms around Mary with terrible, indeterminate merriment.

“What’s gotten _into_ you?!” Mary questioned, still laughing.

“Happy birthday, my sister!” Ruth exclaimed, her soul in a sentimental outpour through words and eyes. “I have news I wanted to share with you first as a birthday gift.” Leaning close to her ear, she clarified: “You’re going to be an aunt! I’m with child!”

No words could express how Mary felt about the news and she couldn’t speak.

“Well?” Ruth impatiently prodded. “ _Say_ something!”

“Oh my!” The stunned silence was broken then stopped just shy of blasphemy. “Ruth!” Throwing her arms around her sister, she asked, “Does Matthew know?”

“Not yet! I wanted to give you the best gift possible and thought…”

“Oh, Ruth! It’s the greatest gift _ever_! Oh my…congratulations!”

“I’m telling everyone else during dinner.”

“I-I still don’t know quite what to say!”

“Say you’ll babysit often!”

“Yes, yes! Of course! I can’t wait! Nor can I contain myself! I’m afraid I’ll mistakenly tattle to everyone before you can out of my euphoria!”

“Don’t you dare! You’ve already stolen my thunder once.”

“I did not! When do I commit such a crime?”

“On my wedding day with your dress, you little harlot!”

Ruth gave her a spirited nudge free of harshness. Then an awkward quiet subsided between them as Mary searched for words delicate enough to ask Ruth what she wanted.

“Did it hurt?” she blurted out, giving up subtly.

“I suppose childbirth wi—“

“Not childbirth.” The older sister was puzzled. “ _You know_.” Ruth’s face did not change as if she was again a naïve child rather than a pregnant married woman. Mary lowered her voice to a modest whisper: “ _Sex_.”

Relief cascaded over Ruth and Mary wondered what she’d had in mind as a substitute for the real answer. Now her silence disconcerted the inquisitive girl.

“Well?” coaxed Mary. “Does sex hurt?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you that, Mary,” Ruth retorted, the blush of a rose highlighting her cheeks.

“You’re my _sister_. You’re supposed to tell me _everything_.”

“But _that_ stuff is _private_!”

“Then what good are you as a sister? What a gyp!”

Afraid that the tension proved Ruth misunderstood that she was actually joking, she gave her a supportive smile then dropped her stare in shame of prying into her big sister’s intimate affairs.

“It hurt,” the experienced girl finally confided. “At first.”

Mary flinched at the thought. “How much?”

“A lot. And you bleed.”

“What did it feel like?”

“Like…like I was being torn asunder, like being turned inside out, stretched too wide. Matthew is…well endowed. I suppose he is, any way, since I have nothing to compare him with. It was an odd sensation when he was completely inside me, like I was filled to an impossible capacity.”

Mary’s horror was undisguised. “Sounds horrible! Why did you keep going then?”

“Because I love Matthew and it was my responsibility as a wife to please him.”

“I thought it’s supposed to be equal responsibility, that _he_ was supposed to please _you_ too, not _hurt_ you.”

“Daniel’s spoiled you rotten with thoughts of equality, hasn’t he? Truth is, nothing is ever equal between a man and a woman.” Her thoughts tapered off momentarily then picked up again: “After a few days and a few more times my body got used to his. Then it wasn’t so bad. And eventually it began to feel the opposite way. It became clear why father and Eli condemn it. I became addicted for a few months; it was all I thought about and wanted to do. I neglected everything else just to have him. We were like savage animals, uncontrollable and insatiable.”

The story of her sister’s deflowering captivated the untouched girl who felt the flame of arousal lick at her own loins. She longed to be defiled like that by Daniel, pain or blood and be damned. At least as an older man with a child he had the experience that the bullish virgin Matthew didn’t.

“Did you bleed again?” was all she could muster after gulping.

“A little more the second time but not again after.” Turning the tables abruptly, she slyly redirected the line of questioning to her sibling. “Haven’t you done anything with H.W. yet?”

The query took Mary aback.

“No!” she warded off the assumption. “I’m waiting, like you did.”

“I only asked because you’re living with him. I thought maybe…”

“No. No, you’re mistaken. Truth is, I’m more than a little terrified at letting any man do _that_ to me. Males have so long been the thorn in the Sunday women’s side that I’ve grown to associate a penis with penalty; the likeness of the two words disturb me.”

“But they haven’t _all_ been bad to you, Mary. Have a _little_ faith. H.W. loves you. That can’t be more obvious. Not to mention Daniel and his men respect you and treat you fairly. Put a big head on your shoulders with all that equality talk. Besides, you know H.W. would never intentionally hurt you and I guarantee he’d be a gentle, accommodating lover when the time comes.”

At this point, Mary was only half listening, her mind brimming with positively filthy and most unchristian thoughts of being ravished by either father or son; at present, she was hopelessly aroused and indiscriminate.

“Let’s return to the party before they think something’s wrong,” Ruth suggested, breaking her out of the bawdy daze.

All Mary was able to do was nod agreement then follow her sister back to the cottage.

Dinner was pre-empted by the announcement as Ruth had originally promised, Mary’s fear of spilling the secret beforehand squashed by the predominant new interest in sex. The room around her erupted with congratulatory good tidings, Matthew embracing his wife fiercely, his hand never straying from hers throughout the rest of the day except when he placed it at her still concave tummy. The already special day turned into one of unforgettable celebration, amplified in twofold. Even Daniel enjoyed the party, sitting majestically in the corner apart from everyone, washing down a cake slice with shots of whiskey from his flask.

Through the day Mary did her best to hide her new knowledge and enraged obsession. Her eyes often strayed to Daniel but guilt brought them back to her boyfriend. Self-conscious of her lusty stares, she wondered if everyone present noticed that which she could not completely control. Veering her eyes off the oil man when she was conscious of her wrong, she remembered how Ruth told her that once it awakened she could not control the yearning. _As if she’d de-evolved back into an animal_ , Mary considered. Why _should_ it be controlled when it wasn’t meant to be? Weren’t humans nothing but animals by nature and sex made them surrender to their true and natural selves? In her experience, suppression never wrought anything good. Did she have the right to oppress what was natural to her? By principal it was her love for H.W. that kept the selfish beast caged but the bars of its cage did not prevent her eyes from still straying. She closed them tight, hoping that when they opened again she would be better composed. But she wasn’t.

Instead she found the party still in full swing. As mother danced with H.W. to the music playing on the phonograph Matthew brought, Mary stole the chance to sit beside Daniel. Trading smiles with him, she discreetly slid closer until their legs touched. With a glance of endearment, she was shocked to find his eyes already locked on her and they smiled at each other again. Perhaps _she_ wasn’t the only one fighting instinct. Once more applying the strategic boldness he taught her, she placed an intrepid hand on his knee and, when he did not protest, she inched higher upon his thigh.

“Are you having a good time?” he asked, his voice dripping with the sentimental effects of the large quantity of whiskey.

“For the first time in a long time,” she retorted.

“Good. That makes me happy. I have a gift for you. I’ll give it to you during our walk later.”

“Then let’s go _now_.”

His bushy eyebrows raised in surprise.

“You want to leave your party so soon?”

“They won’t miss us. They’re busy having their own fun. Besides, I can’t wait to see what you have for me. Come on, they’ll know we’re off together if they notice.”

Standing, she grabbed his hand and tried to yank him up. Amused that she couldn’t budge his thin but heavy frame, he indulged her request by rising to his feet.

“Hold on, Mary!” he chuckled. “You lead the way. I’ll follow. Take me where you want me to go.”

She escorted him through the rugged grasslands, patient with his strenuous gait, and all the way to the beach down where the tide broke ashore. Thinking the cold water would quell her hot passions, she removed her shoes, rushed to the water with a volley of girlish laughter, and allowed the waves to envelope her feet, cooling them from the searing sand. His pleasure derived from observing her jubilant frolic and when she returned to his side he let her throw her arms around his neck and kiss his cheek.

“Happy birthday, my sweet Mary,” he professed with sincere tenderness.

“Thanks. There’s nobody else I’d rather spend it with than you.”

“Not even H.W.?”

“H.W. has his merits but _you_ will _always_ possess my heart.”

“Yes, well, that’s a wonderful introduction to my gift.”

Her smile brightened and eyes twinkled as she sighed, “Yes! What is it? I can’t wait to see it!”

“Before I became an oil man I mined for silver. Since you admittedly _are_ the keeper of _my_ heart, I thought this would be an appropriate symbol of our relationship.”

He presented a small box from his breast pocket to her.

“What is it?” she asked spiritedly.

“Open it and find out.”

Popping the lid off, she was reduced to tears when she saw the solid silver heart-shaped pendant inside. Holding it up by its chain, she gasped in admiration as it gleamed in the March sun.

“Turn it over,” he told her.

On the back read the inscription _Always, Daniel_. The lump that dammed speech in her throat burst, freeing the tears she’d been determined to suppress as she wrapped her arms around his neck a second time.

“Daniel! It’s breath taking!” she cried. “I love it _so_ much! More than _anything_! But you _shouldn’t_ have; it’s _far too_ expensive…”

“Price is irrelevant,” he insisted. “You’re worth far more than it is and deserve to look like a queen.”

“I’ll wear it _every day!_ Thank you so much!”

“You’re very welcome.”

Parting from their embrace, she dabbed her tears away. The couple quietly stood, watching each other with understated mutual love, the antagonized beast inside her briefly forgotten by the sweet innocence of the gift. Here alone they were unbound, able to express what they could not around others. It was not done with words or touch but from the heart: unspoken, fathomless and genuine. She tried without success to affix the chain around her neck until he assisted her. His calloused fingers worked magic on her body with their contact against the nape of her neck and she relished the sensation by closing her eyes until he withdrew. The beast was agitated again.

“You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman,” he proclaimed with fatherly approval but hinted of untold possibility. “I see how the men stare at you. I’ll have to enlist H.W. as your bodyguard.”

 _You see how_ they _look at_ me _but you don’t see how_ I _look at_ you! she thought disparagingly.

“I never feel threatened around the field. The men would never harm me. Besides, I’m always with H.W. or with you. And you’re _still_ my angel.”

Beaming with devotion, she stroked the rough jaw line she had admired over the years. Affection of this type being a rarity for him, she expected rejection with complaint yet received the opposite. Unhesitant for the close proximity, he luxuriated in it instead, settling his strong hands on her hips to keep her near. With her touch against his flesh he shut his eyes; she understood he enjoyed the contact regardless of his paternal inclinations toward her. His hold tightened on her hips, bringing another more nervous, demulcent smile across her lips. Her breath hitched when he drew her closer still but she wasn’t sure if he was conscious of his doing so. This was the definitive moment she had waited most of her life for. Out here in the hinterland between the beach and the town, they were away from the world’s prying judgment and the inherent, uncompromising beast had elicit permission to prowl unbridled. Who other than she and her victim would ever know? _Now or never, Mary!_ New at seduction, a moment of brief indecision clouded her mind before, in a blazon intimate maneuver, she leant up and earnestly pressed her lips against his.

In response, his body stiffened and his fingers dug into her hips, bearing a pain she considered sweet. Inspired, she tilted in more despite his tough grip on her until she was crushed entirely against him. He neither rejected nor recompensed so she kept her lips firmly against his for a prolonged moment before separating from him. She waited for his remarks, anticipated the release of the animal she knew was in him to ravage her in a desperate bid of desire, but he was nonplussed and frozen. Anxiety mounting, she sensed her own personal beast twisting restlessly, ready to spring should he give the slightest indication of weakening to his libidinous wants. She willed him to speak as he struggled for the appropriate words to say. The extended, strained pause ended with his hands delicately trailing from her hips and along her sides but when they reached her chest, he drew back in remarkable self-control then took her hands into his, squeezing gently, igniting her body with passion long simmered along the way.

“We won’t mention this to H.W., will we?” he at last spoke.

Her disappointed heart fell to the bottom of her chest. Dumbfounded by a response that was not at all what she expected, she nodded, muttering defeated agreement under her breath. Hurt by the rejection, she surmised that her line crossing may have done irrevocable damage to her most precious relationship. It was better to have him in the way he was hers before than to not have him at all. She should’ve never taken the risk.

From then on her torrid adolescent passions were more an insurgent monster than a beast, a desire gnawing on the bones of memory of that moment. Often her thoughts regarding the Plainview males strayed in aberrant ways, having recurrent fabrication about having father and son both at once. Every day a war raged within her to stay pure and to refute the monster that turned its lewd attentions toward the weaker prey that H.W. represented. She was both lion and lion tamer fighting against herself. Over the course of her lifetime she’d been told hellfire awaited her if she weakened to the flesh but now she was willing to risk it for a taste of the bitter whiskey flavor of Daniel Plainview’s lips. But her favorite fantasy of receiving pleasure from the two men made her body throb with a desperate ache and, in need of relief, she explored her excited flesh, muffling ecstatic whimpers with the bed clothes clenched tightly between her teeth. Always she surveyed the room to check if any of the men were disturbed by the muffled sounds but luckily they never appeared to be.

The mansion was completed that winter prior to the New Year, an immense acquittal for the young woman who was ecstatic to be promised her own room there. Privacy was a rare commodity for someone who never had her own space and her newly awakened urges rendered it the invaluable lotusland she’d always wanted.

The night before their leave of the cottage, Mary stepped around the back for firewood and unintentionally happened upon Daniel washing in the makeshift shower stall. Built after the Plainviews initially moved in, never before had she erroneously caught anyone using the stall and it _had_ to be _him_ and at this particular time in her life when she did. He missed her as she ducked back around the corner because he was pouring the warm water over his face, making it safe for her to spy. The wooden walls of the shower blocked her view of anything more than his chest and higher or his knees and lower but her rampant imagination filled in what the rest of him was like. When he finished, he reached for a towel hanging over the top of the stall and she exiled herself in a flurry of one part guilt for invading his privacy and one part victory for finally bearing witness to what she’d never before seen but always wanted to.

Commemoration for the mansion’s finish began in the crepuscular dusk of evening with immoderate libation and lively discussion out on the cottage porch. H.W. secured Mary on his lap in the rocking chair, not partaking in the festive inebriation that Daniel, Fletcher and even George submerged themselves in. He affectionately nuzzled her neck, his gentle breath across her throat, but she was busy deconstructing all conventionality of their relationship with her lust for his father. As it turned out, her concern for losing Daniel in any way after the kiss was inconsequential. Her father figure remained her father figure, stayed her teacher and pretended it never happened. Normalcy may have been her detriment, however, as Mary questioned her capability as a woman. H.W. distracted her brooding by gently brushing his lips over the pulse in her neck and a fraction of confidence returned. Bedtime and sore eyes mercifully interrupted her darkening mood so she kissed H.W. lovingly on the lips, announcing that she was going to bed. Being the darling of this household, she administered a kiss to the cheek of each of the other men, lingering a bit longer when giving one to Daniel, pleasuring in the freshness of his skin and hoping he could smell the faint trace of perfume on hers.

Only a half an hour later, H.W. excused himself for bed, perhaps feeling isolated with a drunken George in her absence. With the only other sober member of the sanguine party gone, the young man was weary of the company of drunks. After watching its daily effects on Daniel, he shunned his parent’s addiction to raising liquor to his lips no matter the occasion. He loved his father but as he aged he was more conscientious of and critical toward Daniel’s ingrained badness, seeing with adult eyes what a child was blind to. Still too nubile to confront his father about those wrongs, H.W. resorted to confiding in Mary all of his cresting concerns. Whether or not her beloved boyfriend was perceptive of her attraction to his father she did not know but once in a while Daniel voiced underhanded wisecracks that highlighted her burning fascination, which were either lost in George’s translation or fell on H.W.’s deaf ears. Possible father-son competition for her prized affection got Mary’s yearning blood hot when she heard Daniel call after his son: “Keep her pure, H.W., or I’ll castrate you!”

The caveat inspired a sexually charged dream that night about the two males locked in a familiar primal dispute for the right to have her as a mate. Wits, stamina and strength were contested until the wiser, still stronger, older dominate male secured the position as winner. He claimed her like a feral animal in a savage consummation, establishing his ownership of her. Yet after he finished and fell asleep, her sympathies obliged her to seek the younger male and tend to his needs with a gentle hand that ended with her beneath him in equably ecstatic passion.

Agitated, she awakened with a moan and touched herself for relief. Muscles taut, her lip was bitten to stifle a second moan as her body writhed and spasmed with the sweetest respite, the scorching recollection of Daniel wet and rinsing off in the washing stall clear as crystal in her mind. Fear that the house was roused by her cries forced her gaze to sweep the room, finding H.W. and George fast asleep in their beds. But when her eyes found Daniel’s supine form across the floor she swore he had been watching her intimate display of self-love but feigned sleep when her eyes rested on him. Flipping onto her side so that she faced the wall, she smiled at the unintentional entertainment.


	11. XI. The Lap of Luxury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's another long one, guys. But I hope it'll be worth it for you! 😉🙃

**XI. The Lap of Luxury**

When dawn cracked the morning sky she and H.W. packed the contents of the cottage for the movers to load into their truck while Daniel went to work in the fields. A kiss from the young oil prince rewarded her for good hospitality after she broke to serve fresh lemonade to everyone at noon. While the thirsty men guzzled from their glasses, she concentrated on H.W.’s face and ran a comparative study against Daniel’s. Close examination attested that her beau must have resembled his mother; his softened features were on the pretty side of handsome and far more delicate than Daniel’s harsher, chiseled masculine ones. In the physical aspect they were as different as Paul and Eli were in the internal aspect. Abundant love for the young man flooded from her heart, moving her to stand at his side, slide an arm around his waist and kiss him in adoration on the cheek.

After they were settled and everything arranged the way they wanted, Mary stood in the center of her bedroom one morning after rising, looking about her and thinking that she must’ve known then how Daniel felt while surveying his land: she was queen of everything she set eyes upon. The room was her paradise.

Personalization with every possible womanly touch, her bedroom was all her own, an homage to female delicacy bursting from an exceptionally masculine household like the break of dawn. Daniel ordered her to do as she pleased, sparing no expense for whatever she wanted. Inspired by Victorian era delicacy, she created the private space of her dreams, a perfect place of peace and tranquility. The ideal symbol that embraced the mood was her favorite flower: the rose. The wallpaper she chose, a soothing pale pink accented with cream stripes, set the rose theme with its pattern of burgundy roses. Thus, everything she picked out for her sanctum contained that glorious floral elegance that she loved and based her decorating on.

Roses were interwoven into the ecru Windsor lace curtains, flourished on the tea set arranged upon the Chantilly-draped table across the room, sprawled over the fireplace screen, cast in the ironwork of the candelabra, adorned the porcelain carafe at her beside, branded into the music box H.W. had given her for a birthday gift and engraved in the Waterford crystal vase into which Daniel replenished a fresh cut bouquet every other day. They were stitched into the Oriental rug over the floor, embroidered in the damask quilt on the bed, portrayed on the chest at the foot of that bed. They were featured on the panels of the writing desk, burnt into the velvet of the pillows and sewn into the goose feather throw on the burgundy and cream colored chair and a half she couldn’t wait to curl up in to read by the fire on sleepless nights. The chair itself was a tribute, roses featured in its brocade upholstery.

The men indulged her in this testament to feminine finery with more expensive additions to the room. Gossamer softness was given in laces, silks and muslins by the droves. Sterling silver jewelry – always silver to honor the early mining days of the master of the house – glittered in rose geometries in her jewelry box. The most extravagant gift was the bedroom set of furniture: the bed, the wardrobe, the sitting chair were all manufactured out of rosewood from specs surprisingly dreamed up by Daniel. The bed was the centerpiece of the room, its twisting posts with vines of roses carved deep into them, and the best part was the gorgeous headboard upon which a most breathtaking rose garden was painted. Always the fragrance of rosewater and talcum powder lightly scented this frail paradise so that everyone who had been in it wore that perfume as their own.

During a homecoming visit, mother and Ruth adored her quarters, happy that she got what she deserved. Eli was another story. Stepping inside, he surveyed the room with a severe critical eye unfazed by the airy translucency and quipped: “Since you act like a man during the day, it’s nice to see that you recognize your _female_ attributes at night, my sister.”

The insinuation was blatant and shocked Mary only because it was said in front of mother. Always envious of her preeminent advantages that he did not have, advantages afforded to her by Daniel’s favoritism, Eli couldn’t resist the lewd finger pointing. Taking it in stride, she smiled as best as she could and returned, “You would know about female attributes, wouldn’t you, brother?”

Not knowing what to make of the response or deciding to feign innocence in ignorance, Eli shut his mouth and kept it shut.

New Year’s Eve rang in with an official housewarming bash at the mansion and preparations were undertaken by H.W. and Mary for a party set in the fancy ballroom of the mansion’s west wing. Originally she planned to invite the whole town to rub the salt of their convictions into their critical wounds but Daniel clarified that they were unwelcome. The family and intimate friends were allowed but nobody else. Enthralled by the Yuletide spirit of giving, she bargained with him for Eli to be allowed to attend. Hesitating first, Daniel noticed how much it meant for her to have the rebarbative missionary included so he agreed. Hell, it was the holidays, after all.

Eli, who had been in Los Angeles broadcasting a holiday sermon on Christmas, promised to come home and amend his absence by celebrating the coming of the New Year with everyone. With well-trained aplomb, the invite was accepted and he was reunited with his family beneath the roof of his enemy. He was greeted at the ballroom door by his littlest sister’s warm embrace, returned with an arctic reception.

Mary brushed it off when Ruth and Matthew motioned from across the ballroom. Linking their arms together, she led Eli over to their sister who he had not seen since he’d married her. One of Mary’s greatest pleasures was to rub Ruth’s gravid tummy, in the final trimester of her pregnancy, in an effort to feel the baby kick. She liked setting H.W.’s hand there too and discuss with him future promises that one day he would be able to touch her tummy, swollen with his baby. For that remark and her translation to everyone of it, he blushed so heatedly that he strolled off with George to speak of another topic.

Sipping from a glass of festive plum wine, Mary’s eyes rested on Daniel. Although he sat in a corner discussing what must’ve been business with Fletcher, the tycoon’s assiduous watch barely strayed from her. With a tender smile, she strolled across the room and plopped next to him. Fletcher immediately excused himself from their company in favor of H.W. and George.

“Are you planning to make babies with my son?” she was bluntly questioned.

Laughing she remarked, “No! Maybe. I don’t know.” A pause, then: “How come you never had any more children?”

He gave her a long look, swallowed a mouthful of whiskey and replied, “My wife died in childbirth.”

“But you never remarried.”

“I was a widowed father. There was no time for me to meet other women or have more children. I had to take care of H.W. on my own while running my business.”

“Right. I suppose it would’ve been too difficult.” She took his hand, interlocking their fingers. “But H.W. is a man now. And you’re still relatively young. Not quite vintage.”

Holding up her wine glass to illustrate the metaphor, she finished off the drink, one thought in her head: _Just ask me and_ I’ll _carry your baby!_

Setting the glass on Fletcher’s vacated chair, she ran her fingers through his hair and pressed her full lips against his temple in a tender, loitering kiss.

“You work so hard,” she crooned in his ear, “and have sacrificed much. You deserve a good woman who would give you more children and _many_ dances.”

Before he fully grasped her intent, she was up and pulling him to his feet. All attention gravitated to the center of the room where she coaxed the irascible oil man into a slow dance, meshing their bodies together at a scandalous proximity as the hired string quartet broke out into a lovely concerto. Nobody took offense, choosing to believe the display sweet, except for Eli who saw clearly through his baby sister’s smokescreen and scowled at them with raw, open disapproval. Their dance was short as it flared up the old injury in Daniel’s leg but Mary decided his discomfort toward public emotion was the real reason. Stretching up on her toes to reach him, she pressed her lips to his in a not so daughterly kiss then let him return to his chair. New tension smothered the room but she was oblivious to it. When she left the floor to pour another wine at the bar, Eli was right there to comment.

“Is consuming so much alcohol yet another thing the almighty Daniel Plainview has taught you?” he asked.

“Leave me alone, Eli. I’m trying to have a good time. There’s no sin in that. And if there is, might I remind you that you’re here in the hell’s den of your own free will too. Remember free will? It’s what God gave us to make our own choices.”

“I’m just pointing out to you that your dance number was a shameless spectacle. You put on a better show than I do.”

“It’s the _holidays_ , give it a rest.”

“It’s the holidays celebrating _our Lord’s birthday_.”

“That’s _Christmas_ ,” she corrected with venom, “ _this_ is _New_ _Year’s_ _Eve_.”

“It’s still a part of the cele—“

“If you only came here to sour our mood then you can leave. If having a good time is evil, then you’re right here with us, aren’t you?”

“You were making love to him right in front of us.”

“It was an innocent dance. Maybe it’s that I’m a woman who’s enjoying herself that _really_ bothers you. You see what you want to see.”

“What did _H.W._ see? A beloved daughter sharing a sweet moment with her father figure or his girlfriend engaged in a tawdry entanglement with his father?”

“Why are you so hellbent on pointing accusatory fingers at everyone else? Are _you_ hiding something? You’re as obsessed with Daniel as I am!”

The preacher’s calm composure cracked.

“You’re sixteen-years-old, Mary. Still underage. I’m not saying you can’t consent with a sound adult mind but I know many affluent politicians who would call his participation in an affair with you statutory rape.”

Aghast with horror, she cried, “You _wouldn’t_!”

He smirked and she wanted to slap it right off his face.

“Quiet, Mary. Rage is unbecoming of you. A law was passed to protect naïve young girls who don’t know any better against dirty old men who want to take sexual advantage of them. It’s illegal for him to touch you, dear sister; his doing so would make him a predator. A worse one than is already known. I can’t prove any of his other crimes but the whole town can back me on this one. My political friends can tie up his business concerns and render it impossible for him to make any money. At the worst, he would be locked away in a prison cell for the rest of his life. Do you know what they would do to a convicted sex offender in prison? Especially a rich one who would no doubt try to buy his way out?” He had the audacity to reach out and toy with an errant strand of her hair. “Little Mary Sunday: Daniel Plainview’s illegal tender. Does he call you his sweet Mary because he’s already tasted how ripe you are for his picking?”

Filled with blinding rage, she threw her wine in his face then smacked him as hard as she could across the cheek with her open hand.

“Happy New Year, brother,” she spat through clenched teeth. “Now get the hell out of my house.”

Eli complied with a grin as Mary rushed into the arms of a concerned H.W. who, along with everyone else, questioned her about what happened. Yet she didn’t answer because she couldn’t stop laughing at the realization that the wine had permanently stained Eli’s expensive white shirt.

How credible her brother’s indirect threat was she didn’t know. But there must’ve been _some_ plausibility to it considering he must’ve met a myriad of important people quite capable of realizing Daniel’s imprisonment. Out of terror that he would be snatched away from her because of a petty cruelty, she stayed away from him for as long as she could, crying incessantly within the confines of her room and convincing herself that everything would be fine if she kept her thoughts and actions pure.

Unfair! Whenever she was near the oil man her lust was irresistible yet she managed to stay her distance for the most part should anyone join Eli in his correct impression. Keeping apart from Daniel was torment, even though she knew she probably didn’t need to as those who witnessed her dance were apt to hold her secret, likely already written off as too much to drink. But she refused to take that risk so a new plan was concocted. Nobody would suspect anything if she focused all of her attention on H.W. whenever Daniel was near.

_Keep your hands off of him and nobody will suspect a thing!_

The plan proved more difficult than she imagined, however. Symptoms of her affections for Daniel were brandished to everyone around them. Was it seen in their glances? Was it heard in their tone of voice? Was it in the old blush of her cheek that had returned? Perhaps all would be well if they never so much as touched in public. Surely nobody would suspect if they weren’t even in the same room, especially not _alone_ in the same room.

But it was nearly impossible to escape him. They still needed interaction and close proximity to run their business. They still lived under the same roof. Paranoia tortured the young woman. Division in her heart between father and son brought her to a precipice where she was no longer sure that Eli had been altogether wrong when he indicted her as a whore for the Plainviews. Her uncontested love for them both was inexpressible. Her esteem for Daniel as champion and father figure mixed with profound love not only because he eased the turbulent Sunday homestead but because she enamored him as a person. The single biggest impact on her life had been made by him, an honor that did not even extend to Paul for all of his worldliness and kindness. Life was greatly enriched for her because of Daniel; what she learned from him was more valuable than what she could have learned from any of Paul’s books, for his lessons were on life. But the one disturbing aspect was how she had fetishized her father figure image of him to a perverse level: the perfect man who possessed all the qualities she wanted not only in a father but in a mate. Denial of the ineluctable truth could no longer be denied, proven by her endless dirty thoughts of Daniel. She wanted him so desperately as a lover she’d do anything to achieve it.

On the flip side was H.W., the lifelong friend who’d grown up alongside her. Charitable and industrious, the younger Plainview had the mind of a businessman yet was found wanting of the crass, unrelenting nature of the father. It was as if all the good in Daniel had been extracted to form the son. Neither man forfeited the angelic personas she’d invented for them through the years: H.W. the sweet cherub, Daniel the warrior seraph. In their combination was the best of both worlds. Demure and void of venomous asperity that genetically made up the father, it was H.W.’s soft-spoken compassion that attracted her to him, influenced her to fall in love with him and caused her want to make him her own. Stuck pitilessly in the middle, Mary’s greediness did not want to choose between the pair, nor could she. She was content to live with and have them both in any and every way possible. If that made her a whore then she decided to be the harlot and bear the stoning of Eli’s rebuke.

Much to the uproarious outrage of devout Little Boston, her libertarian lifestyle had graduated exponentially when the indecent Plainviews took Mary with them to live at the opulent mansion. All understood her relationship with H.W. and that, as bad as it appeared when she relocated to the cottage with them, it was excusable under the pretext that Abel’s consumption was contagious. But for the young woman to take residence with the men in the mansion there was no redress and turned her into a pariah, shunned as unfit and too unchristian for their society.

Mary met their contempt with unbothered indifference. She never ventured into town without either H.W. or Daniel at her side, and though she and H.W. managed to uphold their gentility with neutral politeness and no complaints, Daniel was kind to their faces but berated them hatefully under his breath. Mary knew his disturbing constant diet of whiskey played a part in these outbursts. Yet something sweet underscored his mumbled invective: he valiantly growled that they’d better never cause his sweet Mary harm. Whether he was drunk or not she felt the safest with him.

While these things happened in public, more interesting things began to take shape inside the mansion. Occasionally H.W. paid nocturnal visits for nothing but a quick _I love you_ and a peck on the cheek or to stay with her until she fell asleep. Twice he even slipped into bed with her and fell asleep, entangled in each other’s arms in a prophetic sign of things to come. His intentions were always chaste and never verged toward molestation. It satisfied him to just simply be with her.

One morning Daniel noticed him exiting her room, as Mary discovered the hard way after hearing him mutter a snide comment reprimanding their secrecy. From that time forward she caught Daniel expelling trenchant threats against H.W. whenever George wasn’t in the room to relay the words. Hoping to mollify the patriarch’s jealousy without trouble coming to either man from the one-sided cutthroat rivalry, she waited for H.W. to venture into town on an errand then sauntered into Daniel’s office and requested his audience.

“You don’t need to be upset over H.W.’s courtship of me, Daniel,” she told him in frankness.

He gaped at her, half amused, half astonished by her directness, trying to size up the issue.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he deadpanned, rearranging the paperwork in front of him.

It was a telltale sign of his agitation, another trick she was taught by him.

“Let’s not toy with each other any longer, Daniel. You’re the world to me, that’s never been a secret. I suppose it’s safe for me to guess it’s mutual. Your actions speak what you refuse to say.”

“You’re the daughter I’ve never had.”

“Not just a daughter you’ve never had. We mean so much more to each other. We are bound together with an ineffable attraction that I _swear_ H.W. must be as blind as he is deaf to not see.”

“What you are insinuating is very dangerous for us.”

“Yes, but life, like business, is a risk.”

Ready to demonstrate what she meant, she audaciously seated herself on his lap and wasted no time in recommencing where the chaste kiss left off during their walk. Practice she acquired with H.W. equipped her with experience in the art of kissing. No longer inept, she used her tongue to tease him into returning the kiss and this time did not sacrifice what she wanted from him but instead aggressively pursued it. When he cupped her face gently and at last gave her what she had waited almost her whole life for, her body was electrified by a tingling, triumphant frisson. His hands roamed down her back, grasped her pert rear end in his palms and squeezed lasciviously.

“Don’t stop!” she demanded hotly in his ear as he nuzzled and kissed her neck. “I’ve waited so long for this!”

At that moment the momentous spell broke and the half-drunk Daniel abjured, holding her away from him.

“Mary, Mary, stop. Stop, sweetheart. I can’t go through with this. This is inappropriate. You’re not even eighteen yet.”

“Almost.”

She pushed against his restraint but he held her fast, reiterating in a firmer tone, “You’re not eighteen. Until you reach the legal age of consent…”

“What then? Will you make a woman of me? Don’t insult me with denial, Daniel, the tension between us is suffocating.”

Abstinent tension hung thick between them, as if she’d stepped into a monastery fully nude. He was holding something back from her, she could tell by his reactions.

“You have H.W….”

“And I want you too. The three of us already live together and the town thinks us degenerates. But they’re wrong. We’re all in love…”

“You are my _daughter_ , Mary.”

“Yet I am not. The forbidden idea that I am makes it more appealing. You watched me pleasure myself the last night at the cottage. I caught you. I thought of you while I did it. I still do it with you in mind. What’s between us isn’t wrong and to hell with the convictions of others! They never mattered before so why should they matter now?”

He hesitated to speak, crafting his words with extreme care as he stared at her with a wealth of love reflected in his eyes.

“Mary, listen to me. You have H.W. who loves you very much and you cannot mean to do this. You are young, confused by your admiration for someone who snatched you from a horrible life. You aren’t even legal, Mary, _what_ are you thinking? What I may want is meaningless right now.”

“Fine,” she said curtly. “But I know you better. You always take what you want. Eventually. When you come around, you know where to find me.”

Wounded, she was draft cold as she deferentially rose from his lap and exited the room, swearing she overheard a distinct mumbling of _Not until you’re eighteen_ under his breath.

Things were exceedingly uncomfortable between the father figure and surrogate daughter thereafter as Pyrrhic insecurities cached away inside her bubbled up in torment. Was it possible that she misread the way he gazed at her and defended her honor? Here was empirical proof that Daniel was no scofflaw set out to steal everyone of everything they had when the one thing she had to offer was her rejected virginity. They were wrong about him after all. He was a laudable man who corrected her wrong firmly, discreetly and sparingly. How she could have misjudged his fatherly intentions she did not know but was ashamed. No solid evidence was ever given that he was interested in her for anything other than a daughter. Every try to amend her unseemly insinuation failed. Desperation to speak to him, apologize, to have everything return to as it was rended her conscience. Reaching that goal was more unlikely as the days passed and her adopted father distanced himself further. He made himself scarce each time she was near, leaving the room whenever she appeared in it. Their evening walks were discontinued and Mary feared that her hero had disowned her for her depravity and promiscuous conduct. What conversation they had was kept at a bare minimum and this time H.W. noticed.

 _What’s been going on between you and my father?_ he signed one night during dinner after Daniel forwent joining them in the dining room to eat in his office. _There’s something wrong, I can sense it._

 _I made a suggestion he wasn’t fond of_ , she returned. _He wanted something his way and I argued against him. You know how he is in matters of business. He told me I am too young to know better._

H.W. smiled and Mary mirrored his relief with her own but for a very different reason.

_That’s my father. The great Daniel Plainview. Too stubborn to listen to anyone else’s opinions. Not even yours. Not even mine._

Her second smile was weaker but she nodded. No walk with Daniel scheduled, she settled on taking one with H.W. down to the beach. It was late spring again but the breeze was chilled when brought in from the ocean, coercing the budding lovers to snuggle for shared warmth. Time alone with H.W. was refreshing opposed to the icy reception from the master of Plainview manor. H.W. made her forget Daniel for a while, a welcome lapse of memory as he caressed and kissed her. Bittersweet it was when they parted for the night but after she fell asleep all dreams of Daniel were expelled and in their wake was her wedding night with H.W. and a new happily-ever-after.

The dissent between her and Daniel reached its third wearisome month in June. Inestimable damage was clearly done by her rash quarrel; he was water through her fingers that she lost in her desperation to hold onto. A more direct approach was required, she decided, if things were ever to be fixed.

Father’s Day was an ideal outlet to patch up the hole that her kiss had punched through their relationship. The morning occupied her with preparations for a harmless gift from the heart: a lunch out in the garden that displayed all of her signature personal touches. The servants were evicted from the kitchen so that she could work without the taint of outside opinion. H.W., who had been searching for her throughout the mansion, finally found her adding the finishes and packing things in a picnic basket.

 _What’s this?_ he asked before stealing a piece of cold pheasant.

She gently, playfully slapped his offending hand, then replied: _It’s for your father as a Father’s Day gift. Things haven’t been well between us for quite some time and I hope to repair whatever wrong I’ve committed._

_Can I come?_

_No. Sorry, this must be one-on-one._

Those her last words, she walked out of the kitchen, handed the basket of food to a maid, instructed her to set up the picnic and made a bee-line toward the office. Entering the room much like she had the last time, she found him finalizing a new acquisition with Fletcher. The creak and subsequent echo of the shutting door drew their attention from the paperwork to her.

“Daniel, it’s a holiday,” she reasoned straight away. “Why don’t you two put the work away and you and I can have one of those walks we used to take? It’s long overdue.”

Daniel’s stoic expression was unreadable but Mary was determined to keep her own face as blank as a professional gambler. Part of her game was to act like it didn’t mean as much to her as it did.

“ _Is_ today a holiday?” he asked her. She couldn’t tell if he was serious.

“It’s Father’s Day. I have something special for you.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“But I’m not your father.”

“Yes, you are,” she dauntlessly argued. “You’ve _always_ _been_ my father.”

Playing a facetious game, he retaliated, “Business doesn’t stop for holidays, my sweet.”

It had been the first time he’d referred to her as his sweet in the awkward months after the kiss.

“It’s Sunday. The Sabbath. The day of rest. You need a break to live. Otherwise what is the point in a life unlived?”

There was a silent pause as they weighed their options.

Fletcher, who wore his exhaustion barefaced, told Daniel, “Seems like you’ve got an angel watching out for your well-being.”

Mary loved Fletcher for reversing her personal metaphor for the oil man to describe her. The innocent switch did not go unrecognized by Daniel who looked her dead in the eye and nodded.

“Indeed it does,” he concurred, sticking the pen he held back into the blotter. “I don’t know if it’s wise for us to…”

“Fresh air will do you good rather than keeping holed up inside a dank room,” Mary rationalized further.

“Go ahead, Daniel,” urged Fletcher. “We should quit so you could enjoy your day. I know you look forward to your time with her.”

The young woman smiled inside at her unwitting ally.

Daniel stared at his surrogate daughter with an appreciative gleam for her sly manipulation to corner him where she wanted him. A consensual nod later, he exited the room at her side, grabbing his jacket from the coat rack at the door. For a few grueling minutes, they walked through the mansion corridors, her hands fidgeting at her sides. Nothing was said between them until they were out of the house and she was leading him toward the picnic spread.

“What’s _this_?” he asked with an amused twinkle in his eyes when they rested on the waiting picnic. “Is _this_ what you’ve taken me away from my work for?”

“Are you sorry?” she asked, inserting her hand into his.

“We’ll see,” he replied with a teasing smile.

“I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“And a wonderful surprise it is. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Well, then. Shall we eat? I’m starving now that I see your delicious surprise.”

Things still did not go as Mary had intended. The picnic was consumed in almost dead silence with sporadic interruptions of praise for her culinary skills between mouthfuls.

 _This is horrible!_ she complained in her head. _This can’t go on much longer!_

“I didn’t intend for this to happen,” Mary broke the ice. “This awkwardness is my fault. If you want me to move out…”

“I could _never_ ask you to leave. H.W. loves you and so do I. I won’t deny it. It would be an injustice to deny it but you got it all wrong, sweet Mary. I love you as a daughter and I know if you search your heart you will find you love me as a father and nothing more. It’s perfectly understandable for an innocent heart to get confused when it feels indebted to someone. Maybe you feel that you owe me something for my years of protection and guidance but you don’t. I just want you to be happy.”

“Then why have you been evading me?”

“To give you time and space so that you could think and reinforce your bond with H.W. without me in the way.”

“You _can’t_ _ever_ be in the way, whatever gave you the idea that you were?”

“I didn’t get to where I am today with poor perception, my sweet.”

“No, I suppose not.” Another pause parted them with the amicable promise of a veil concealing a new bride. “Will you stop avoiding me now? I dislike being in your absence.”

“I think we can work something out.”

“Good. I still need you as much as I need air to breathe.”

“Is that so?”

“Very much so.”

“Then we can’t have you suffocating now, can we?”

The girl was pleased to feel her dainty, sweaty hand swallowed by his huge dry one and it was like old times anew. When she stuffed a large swollen strawberry in his mouth, he drew her against him. Laughing, she used her thumb to wipe off the juice dribbling from the corner of his mouth before virtuously kissing him there.

In the coming days, their walks resumed with great joy expressed by Mary who bounced everywhere with a nymph’s mischievous delight. The picture of domestic stability, she was the doting Plainview amoret who elected to cook, clean and care for them. The effort was appreciated but Daniel griped that he did not instruct her in the oil business to stay home and be a hausfrau. Paying him no mind, she retorted that she enjoyed her feminine governance, that Daniel had eradicated the obligation but preserved the choice for her. Thus, she arranged a second picnic luncheon for the three of them on the beach the following Saturday afternoon. When Daniel raised the accursed flask to his lips she confiscated it from him, demanding that he wasn’t to swallow a drop until at least after the picnic. He complied, winning a grateful hug from her.

The next few months were spent in an identical fashion, a divine dullness quite different from the days in the pasture before Paul left to Signal Hill many years ago. It was a routine Mary carried out with ecstatic diligence. To satisfy Daniel’s dreams of grooming a savvy businesswoman out of her, she assisted in the office and out in the fields when the oil man wanted to show her something particular or test her practical education with questions about how she would solve a problem or perform a task. It was his way to boast the abilities and knowledge of his uncommon female pupil to the roughnecks; being validated by someone she admired was all she’d ever wanted and it boosted her confidence exponentially.

Desperate to steer her away from the path her misogynistic previous life had ingrained in her, he surprised her with a secret trip one morning. In the dark about their destination, she was giddy during the drive. Hiding her anticipation from him, she burned it off by fidgeting her toes inside her shoes and her fingers at her sides. When the car was parked on a tract of farmland just beyond Little Boston’s town limits, her anxiety turned into curiosity.

“Why are we here?” she asked with interest.

“You’ve always wanted to go with me on one of my business negotiations,” he reminded. “Here’s your chance. This is the Singer ranch. Their tract will be our next acquisition and you’ll get a practical business lesson.”

Smiling, she nodded, thankful for the opportunity. Singer’s greeting of them at the door showed that their arrival had been expected. The men shook hands and, to her unquestionable shock, Daniel introduced her as his business associate. Associate! Not secretary, not even apprentice. _Associate!_ A title reserved for H.W. and Fletcher, one implicit for men alone. It spoke volumes of the esteem Daniel held for her although Singer glanced at her with ghastly skepticism. Daniel’s opinion was the only one that mattered and she’d earned his respect fair and square. Filled with a peacock’s pride, she clasped Singer’s hand in an acceptance she never imagined possible for a woman.

She felt at home sitting beside Daniel at the Singer tables, Singer and his two sons completing the assembly. Just like in her former home, the matriarch and the young daughter were dismissed. The girl, no more than eleven, hesitated, making unwavering eye contact with Mary. Inside those glistening eyes was a familiar plea to let her stay. The look wounded Mary, who tried to communicate her empathy for once being in her shoes until an angel saved her but it was useless. It was not her place to demand the girl stay. If she spoke up against her dismissal, it could cost Daniel the lease. Singer shooed the girl from the room but Mary sent out a phantom hand to stop her with a grasp on the shoulder. The will ghost could not grasp what was tangible and the dismissed girl slipped away.

Exclusion from men’s business hurt, for there was never a greater feeling of accomplishment as when a woman gained acceptance into the prestigious boy’s club. Mary knew she was a pioneer in this and, thus, the Plainview household was harmonized once again.

Until her eighteenth birthday came at last. No other event in Little Boston had ever been more anticipated beside Ruth’s wedding and the initial spudding-in ceremony and, as those two celebrations had been, was an all-day affair. _Whatever your heart desires_ , Daniel proclaimed, and allowed her to invite everyone, the roughnecks and townspeople included, to the mansion for the once-in-a-lifetime bash. Not even H.W.’s eighteenth had been such a large jubilation, which she enjoyed joking with him about, and in turn being dubbed by her sweetheart as Daddy’s Little Girl. The prospector made a fair attempt to be sociable during the party but by mid-morning his forbearance dissolved and he absconded back into the privacy of his office. Within the half hour, Mary of course missed him, parted company with her heavily pregnant sister and went looking there first, finding him at his desk in the center of swirling blue cigarette smoke.

“Don’t deprive me of your presence, my dearest,” she pressed. “Not on my birthday.”

“Your _special_ birthday no less.”

“Yes, my _special_ birthday.”

“A special birthday requires a special gift, don’t you think?”

She smiled impishly and said, “I suppose it would.”

“And you will have one but now is not the right time.”

Mary wrinkled her nose, flummoxed.

“How can it not be the right time?”

One of their trademark silences put the conversation at a standstill while they exchanged amorous longing through their mutually held gazes. Before she was conscious of his doing so, he slid across the desk a white box tied with a pink ribbon that was a replica of the one he’d given her when she was seven.

“What’s this?” she inquired lightly. “A birthday gift for me?”

“Open it.”

Smiling, she daintily plucked at the ribbon, yanking the knot of the bow loose then free before eagerly raising the lid and tissue paper inside with the exhilaration of the child she once was. But the woman she’d become lifted what was in the box with astonished, gaping eyes. Another white garment lay inside but it was one quite different from the original. Soft and delicate, it was made of white chiffon, a scandalous article that was bad form for a man to buy for a young woman he raised as his own daughter.

“Daniel!” she sighed breathlessly. “I can’t accept this! It’s exquisite and so…so _provacative_!”

“Consider it an updated version of its predecessor. To celebrate your womanhood.”

“I don’t know what to say…”

“Say you won’t wear it for H.W. and that you’ll wear it to bed tonight.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she nodded then agreed, “Yes, of course. Tonight. And most nights hereafter.”

“Put it away now and I’ll have it placed in your room for later.”

She reluctantly did as told, asking, “What do you suppose H.W. would say if he ever found me in it?”

“I’ve been sitting here alone, thinking about things. How things change so quickly before you realize it.”

The barefaced dismissal of her question did not surprise her but she knew him well enough to wait patiently for him to answer in his own time.

“Please, sit down,” he recommended, motioning to the chair on the opposite side of his desk. “Have a celebratory drink with me.”

Raised under the belief that whiskey was evil rather than a cure-all elixir, there was irony in how she was hesitant to drink but more than willing to remain alone in the room with the undisputed love of her life, a man old enough to be her father and was. A portion of the vile drink was poured from its quarter-empty bottle into two glasses and she was handed one which she accepted and sipped from surreptitiously. The taste got the better of her as she grimaced then choked, noting with dismay that the man she wanted to impress observed her reaction, entertained by her weak tolerance level.

“ _How_ can you drink this?!” she sputtered.

“It’s an acquired taste.” He leaned back in his chair and watched her attempt another sip with identical results.

“I suppose it isn’t _my_ taste,” she declared, shoving the glass away from her.

“The more you drink, the better it tastes.”

“Yes, I bet it does. So are you going to confide in me what you were thinking about?”

“You. When we first met, you were seven years old. That was eleven years ago. You were a little girl racing around my legs chasing H.W. and now you’ve grown into the most beautiful woman I’ve ever set eyes on. A perfect lady capable of holding her own against men. You are the daughter I never had. You make me proud.”

She glowed as bright as a bonfire.

“And to think, my father expected me to be a dross creature wasting her life away in the bed and at the hearth of a woman-hating twin of himself.”

“And look where you are today.”

“Look where I am today. I was always a willful spirit.”

They shared a smile.

“Everyone is strong when they are young, my sweet, but life can break the strongest inevitably. Take care that never happens to you.”

“How can it when I have Gibraltar as an example to follow? You performed a miracle in me. My most treasured moment was when I first set my eyes upon you.”

The flattery locked their eyes in a solemn, sentimental moment that thickened the atmosphere between them. Absorbed in her romanticism of him, her eyes were glassy with fantasy. Age was the distance that had always parted them, now closing in.

“They don’t deserve to be here after all of their conniving ways,” he grumbled, gesturing in the direction of the lively party. “I don’t care about their problem with me. It’s what they say and do to _you_ …”

“I don’t care a bit about them,” she interrupted with a blasé grin. “Let them come with their knives hidden behind their backs. They’re going to hate me any way. So let them hate me with a smile.”

He sized up what she had just said and gave an agreeable nod of approval. She was always a firecracker in her wit. Thinking it wise, he switched topics.

“Tonight I leave the conversation to you, my sweet Mary. I’m certain there are things you’ve always wanted to know about me. Maybe you couldn’t ask because you were too intimidated by bullies. But you’re a powerful woman now, afraid of nothing. Let the truth be a gift. As an adult maybe you now can handle the answers to those questions you’ve always wanted to ask me.”

Intrigued by the verbose fluctuations of the conversation, Mary raised an philosophical brow and questioned, “Is there something you want to get off your chest, Daniel?”

“If you only knew…”

“You’ve said that to me before so tell me then, if the truth be my gift.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Gazing at her, completely besotted, he reached into a desk drawer and presented her with the folded piece of paper.

“What’s this?” she inquired, opening it to discover the note she’d written years ago thanking him for the other white dress he had purchased for the spudding-in ceremony. “How did you come across this?”

“From the pocket of one of your dresses, taken out by the laundress. She thought it might be something important and gave it to me. I didn’t know what it was but when I read it, it was more than just something important. It was priceless. I’ve kept it with me every day for the last eleven years and whenever I reached a low or breaking point I took it out and read it.”

Every drop of blood in her body rushed up to her face, turning it the old customary crimson. In passing it back to him, their hands touched; his, rough and calloused, caressing her soft one. For a short moment, she lost her breath. Then, regaining her composure, she stated with a maudlin lump in her throat, “Then I’m happy you found it since it means so much to you.”

“It means _everything_ to me.”

He carefully refolded the note and placed it back in its secret spot as if it was a precious gem.

Taking a deep breath, she asked a question that had always wanted asking:

“Did you ever hear from Paul again? You received that one letter and I wrote back but got no further correspondence that I know of. That isn’t like him.”

“I gave you all I had. The letters stopped coming. I never had the courage to tell you. I assumed something very bad happened. But I don’t know and I am so sorry for never telling you. It was wrong of me. I know he meant a great deal to you.”

The news was a heartbreaking truth to Mary who wondered if the negative energy from her bad thoughts long ago had circled back to penalize her beloved Paul with an ill fate. Ignoring how Daniel referred to her cherished brother in the past tense, she sighed and blinked back tears. There was a dreaded feeling inside her that this was only a preview of what was to come out of this game. The glum subject wanted another quick change and her thoughts companioned with the letter were a fitting segue.

“Remember the time you told me I was worthy of the Plainview name?” she began, reaching far back into her own memory. “That was around the time Henry disappeared, wasn’t it?”

Daniel’s face darkened and he steeled himself for what pended at mention of Henry’s name. For a fleeting moment it was evident the thought crossed his mind that he bit off more than he could chew.

“I believe it was,” he responded, eyes never leaving her and waiting for the inevitable.

“You gave me that letter from Paul and you spoke of a sibling’s worth. Remember?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to Henry, Daniel? I know your relationship with him took a bitter wrong turn and that you were very close beforehand. I also am familiar with your combustible temper. Did you do something to him?”

“What if I told you that he just went away?”

“I’d remind you that you promised to deliver the truth as a gift, however serrated it be.”

The photographic memory of Daniel’s indelible attack on Eli in the mud pit chilled her body in the stifling heat. The last thing she wanted was to incur that virulent wrath upon herself, although she did not believe her father figure would ever do so much as raise a hand to her.

“You would hate me if I told you,” he warned, suddenly and aberrantly unable to look at her.

“You said that before, too, and I can honestly say that I will _never_ hate my angel.”

“Your angel is a figment of your imagination, Mary. It’s time to let it go.”

Tired of his desultory avoidance of a straight explanation, she ordered, “Tell me. And perhaps you won’t need to rely on that cursed flask so heavily.”

The next few months were spent in an identical fashion, a divine dullness quite different from the days in the pasture before Paul left to Signal Hill many years ago. It was a routine Mary carried out with ecstatic diligence. To satisfy Daniel’s dreams of grooming a savvy businesswoman out of her, she assisted in the office and out in the fields when the oil man wanted to show her something particular or test her practical education with questions about how she would solve a problem or perform a task. It was his way to boast the abilities and knowledge of his uncommon female pupil to the roughnecks; being validated by someone she admired was all she’d ever wanted and it boosted her confidence exponentially.

Desperate to steer her away from the path her misogynistic previous life had ingrained in her, he surprised her with a secret trip one morning. In the dark about their destination, she was giddy during the drive. Hiding her anticipation from him, she burned it off by fidgeting her toes inside her shoes and her fingers at her sides. When the car was parked on a tract of farmland just beyond Little Boston’s town limits, her anxiety turned into curiosity.

“Why are we here?” she asked with interest.

“You’ve always wanted to go with me on one of my business negotiations,” he reminded. “Here’s your chance. This is the Singer ranch. Their tract will be our next acquisition and you’ll get a practical business lesson.”

Smiling, she nodded, thankful for the opportunity. Singer’s greeting of them at the door showed that their arrival had been expected. The men shook hands and, to her unquestionable shock, Daniel introduced her as his business associate. Associate! Not secretary, not even apprentice. _Associate!_ A title reserved for H.W. and Fletcher, one implicit for men alone. It spoke volumes of the esteem Daniel held for her although Singer glanced at her with ghastly skepticism. Daniel’s opinion was the only one that mattered and she’d earned his respect fair and square. Filled with a peacock’s pride, she clasped Singer’s hand in an acceptance she never imagined possible for a woman.

She felt at home sitting beside Daniel at the Singer tables, Singer and his two sons completing the assembly. Just like in her former home, the matriarch and the young daughter were dismissed. The girl, no more than eleven, hesitated, making unwavering eye contact with Mary. Inside those glistening eyes was a familiar plea to let her stay. The look wounded Mary, who tried to communicate her empathy for once being in her shoes until an angel saved her but it was useless. It was not her place to demand the girl stay. If she spoke up against her dismissal, it could cost Daniel the lease. Singer shooed the girl from the room but Mary sent out a phantom hand to stop her with a grasp on the shoulder. The will ghost could not grasp what was tangible and the dismissed girl slipped away.

Exclusion from men’s business hurt, for there was never a greater feeling of accomplishment as when a woman gained acceptance into the prestigious boy’s club. Mary knew she was a pioneer in this and, thus, the Plainview household was harmonized once again.

Until her eighteenth birthday came at last. No other event in Little Boston had ever been more anticipated beside Ruth’s wedding and the initial spudding-in ceremony and, as those two celebrations had been, was an all-day affair. _Whatever your heart desires_ , Daniel proclaimed, and allowed her to invite everyone, the roughnecks and townspeople included, to the mansion for the once-in-a-lifetime bash. Not even H.W.’s eighteenth had been such a large jubilation, which she enjoyed joking with him about, and in turn being dubbed by her sweetheart as Daddy’s Little Girl. The prospector made a fair attempt to be sociable during the party but by mid-morning his forbearance dissolved and he absconded back into the privacy of his office. Within the half hour, Mary of course missed him, parted company with her heavily pregnant sister and went looking there first, finding him at his desk in the center of swirling blue cigarette smoke.

“Don’t deprive me of your presence, my dearest,” she pressed. “Not on my birthday.”

“Your _special_ birthday no less.”

“Yes, my _special_ birthday.”

“A special birthday requires a special gift, don’t you think?”

She smiled impishly and said, “I suppose it would.”

“And you will have one but now is not the right time.”

Mary wrinkled her nose, flummoxed.

“How can it not be the right time?”

One of their trademark silences put the conversation at a standstill while they exchanged amorous longing through their mutually held gazes. Before she was conscious of his doing so, he slid across the desk a white box tied with a pink ribbon that was a replica of the one he’d given her when she was seven.

“What’s this?” she inquired lightly. “A birthday gift for me?”

“Open it.”

Smiling, she daintily plucked at the ribbon, yanking the knot of the bow loose then free before eagerly raising the lid and tissue paper inside with the exhilaration of the child she once was. But the woman she’d become lifted what was in the box with astonished, gaping eyes. Another white garment lay inside but it was one quite different from the original. Soft and delicate, it was made of white chiffon, a scandalous article that was bad form for a man to buy for a young woman he raised as his own daughter.

“Daniel!” she sighed breathlessly. “I can’t accept this! It’s exquisite and so…so _provocative_!”

“Consider it an updated version of its predecessor. To celebrate your womanhood.”

“I don’t know what to say…”

“Say you won’t wear it for H.W. and that you’ll wear it to bed tonight.”

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she nodded then agreed, “Yes, of course. Tonight. And most nights hereafter.”

“Put it away now and I’ll have it placed in your room for later.”

She reluctantly did as told, asking, “What do you suppose H.W. would say if he ever found me in it?”

“I’ve been sitting here alone, thinking about things. How things change so quickly before you realize it.”

The barefaced dismissal of her question did not surprise her but she knew him well enough to wait patiently for him to answer in his own time.

“Please, sit down,” he recommended, motioning to the chair on the opposite side of his desk. “Have a celebratory drink with me.”

Raised under the belief that whiskey was evil rather than a cure-all elixir, there was irony in how she was hesitant to drink but more than willing to remain alone in the room with the undisputed love of her life, a man old enough to be her father and was. A portion of the vile drink was poured from its quarter-empty bottle into two glasses and she was handed one which she accepted and sipped from surreptitiously. The taste got the better of her as she grimaced then choked, noting with dismay that the man she wanted to impress observed her reaction, entertained by her weak tolerance level.

“ _How_ can you drink this?!” she sputtered.

“It’s an acquired taste.” He leaned back in his chair and watched her attempt another sip with identical results.

“I suppose it isn’t _my_ taste,” she declared, shoving the glass away from her.

“The more you drink, the better it tastes.”

“Yes, I bet it does. So are you going to confide in me what you were thinking about?”

“You. When we first met, you were seven years old. That was eleven years ago. You were a little girl racing around my legs chasing H.W. and now you’ve grown into the most beautiful woman I’ve ever set eyes on. A perfect lady capable of holding her own against men. You are the daughter I never had. You make me proud.”

She glowed as bright as a bonfire.

“And to think, my father expected me to be a dross creature wasting her life away in the bed and at the hearth of a woman-hating twin of himself.”

“And look where you are today.”

“Look where I am today. I was always a willful spirit.”

They shared a smile.

“Everyone is strong when they are young, my sweet, but life can break the strongest inevitably. Take care that never happens to you.”

“How can it when I have Gibraltar as an example to follow? You performed a miracle in me. My most treasured moment was when I first set my eyes upon you.”

The flattery locked their eyes in a solemn, sentimental moment that thickened the atmosphere between them. Absorbed in her romanticism of him, her eyes were glassy with fantasy. Age was the distance that had always parted them, now closing in.

“They don’t deserve to be here after all of their conniving ways,” he grumbled, gesturing in the direction of the lively party. “I don’t care about their problem with me. It’s what they say and do to _you_ …”

“I don’t care a bit about them,” she interrupted with a blasé grin. “Let them come with their knives hidden behind their backs. They’re going to hate me any way. So let them hate me with a smile.”

He sized up what she had just said and gave an agreeable nod of approval. She was always a firecracker in her wit. Thinking it wise, he switched topics.

“Tonight I leave the conversation to you, my sweet Mary. I’m certain there are things you’ve always wanted to know about me. Maybe you couldn’t ask because you were too intimidated by bullies. But you’re a powerful woman now, afraid of nothing. Let the truth be a gift. As an adult maybe you now can handle the answers to those questions you’ve always wanted to ask me.”

Intrigued by the verbose fluctuations of the conversation, Mary raised an philosophical brow and questioned, “Is there something you want to get off your chest, Daniel?”

“If you only knew…”

“You’ve said that to me before so tell me then, if the truth be my gift.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Gazing at her, completely besotted, he reached into a desk drawer and presented her with the folded piece of paper.

“What’s this?” she inquired, opening it to discover the note she’d written years ago thanking him for the other white dress he had purchased for the spudding-in ceremony. “How did you come across this?”

“From the pocket of one of your dresses, taken out by the laundress. She thought it might be something important and gave it to me. I didn’t know what it was but when I read it, it was more than just something important. It was priceless. I’ve kept it with me every day for the last eleven years and whenever I reached a low or breaking point I took it out and read it.”

Every drop of blood in her body rushed up to her face, turning it the old customary crimson. In passing it back to him, their hands touched; his, rough and calloused, caressing her soft one. For a short moment, she lost her breath. Then, regaining her composure, she stated with a maudlin lump in her throat, “Then I’m happy you found it since it means so much to you.”

“It means _everything_ to me.”

He carefully refolded the note and placed it back in its secret spot as if it was a precious gem.

Taking a deep breath, she asked a question that had always wanted asking:

“Did you ever hear from Paul again? You received that one letter and I wrote back but got no further correspondence that I know of. That isn’t like him.”

“I gave you all I had. The letters stopped coming. I never had the courage to tell you. I assumed something very bad happened. But I don’t know and I am so sorry for never telling you. It was wrong of me. I know he meant a great deal to you.”

The news was a heartbreaking truth to Mary who wondered if the negative energy from her bad thoughts long ago had circled back to penalize her beloved Paul with an ill fate. Ignoring how Daniel referred to her cherished brother in the past tense, she sighed and blinked back tears. There was a dreaded feeling inside her that this was only a preview of what was to come out of this game. The glum subject wanted another quick change and her thoughts companioned with the letter were a fitting segue.

“Remember the time you told me I was worthy of the Plainview name?” she began, reaching far back into her own memory. “That was around the time Henry disappeared, wasn’t it?”

Daniel’s face darkened and he steeled himself for what pended at mention of Henry’s name. For a fleeting moment it was evident the thought crossed his mind that he bit off more than he could chew.

“I believe it was,” he responded, eyes never leaving her and waiting for the inevitable.

“You gave me that letter from Paul and you spoke of a sibling’s worth. Remember?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to Henry, Daniel? I know your relationship with him took a bitter wrong turn and that you were very close beforehand. I also am familiar with your combustible temper. Did you do something to him?”

“What if I told you that he just went away?”

“I’d remind you that you promised to deliver the truth as a gift, however serrated it be.”

The photographic memory of Daniel’s indelible attack on Eli in the mud pit chilled her body in the stifling heat. The last thing she wanted was to incur that virulent wrath upon herself, although she did not believe her father figure would ever do so much as raise a hand to her.

“You would hate me if I told you,” he warned, suddenly and aberrantly unable to look at her.

“You said that before, too, and I can honestly say that I will _never_ hate my angel.”

“Your angel is a figment of your imagination, Mary. It’s time to let it go.”

Tired of his desultory avoidance of a straight explanation, she ordered, “Tell me. And perhaps you won’t need to rely on that cursed flask so heavily.”

A raw nerve was struck in him by those words; his precious whiskey acted as a requital nepenthe for his guilty conscience: the great heathen alchemist who turned solid earth into liquid black gold and traded decent integrity for unscrupulous selfishness.

He sighed, half growling as he considered how best to formulate his response to the woman whose lifetime majority he had spent training to be his match. Seizing the opportunity, she reached over to make contact with the hand he wrapped around his glass, stroking his strong, dexterous fingers with her thumb.

“Henry was a liar,” he began. “He was some transient with nobody to account for him. He wasn’t who he said he was. He was someone else. I don’t know who because I never bothered to ask but he wasn’t my real brother.”

“How do you know?”

“All of that sharp cleverness and careful observation I taught you. Whatever-his-name-was couldn’t outsmart me.”

Lines of soundless tears streamed down Mary’s face as she pursued, “ _What_ did you do to him, Daniel?”

“You know what I did, Mary. You always suspected and you were right. I got rid of him. I will spare you the details.”

“No. You said I’m adult enough to know. I want to know. I need to hear you say it to me.”

His eyes pierced her with the rancor of a proud man; a Luciferian peacock who had been played a fool and was too vain to admit it.

“I put a bullet in his skull and buried him in the muck out in the desert,” he did not disavow. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Does it make you feel better?”

The former shortcomings that had once been unspoken spilt before her, the unformed words twisted beasts that bit into and impaired her. Her mind went numb and the beasts named Reality and Truth gnawed away until nothing was left of her. They killed who she once was, who she once thought _he_ was, then spewed out the bones to reflesh into a new Mary, one wiser of the incorrigible actions of her eminent angel and his faultless days. Dislodged from the chimerical beliefs that had glued together her faith in his goodness down their acquainted years, she was wrecked by the misery of knowing but refused to be defeated by it.

“Yes, it does. Doesn’t it for you?”

“It depends. Do you hate me?”

Time suspended and the question compared to a punch in the gut from a professional boxer. All the ignoble deeds he’d been accused of cast unspeakable dread over her. None of it mattered when the finger was first pointed but with the worst thing imagined verified as truth her eyes had been forced open. In this birthday repentance, her angel’s confession was for killing a man, just as some of the rumors had implied. How many more were true? Where was she supposed to go from here? A vulnerable wildflower uprooted from a safe valley, she was now at the mercy of the irascible oil man.

But here was the enigmatic part: she still loved him unconditionally. He entered her life when nobody was there for her and no direct evil was ever done to her personally. If he was a monster then he was benevolent to those who loved him. In her head she gathered strength and courage by recital of the one word she knew described her throughout her life: resilient. Deciding quickly that her inviolable love remained undamaged, she shook her head.

“No. Told you. I could never hate my angel. But today, perhaps, I am a little more afraid of you.”

“That wasn’t my intention. You pushed for an answer. It isn’t my fault you didn’t like what you heard.”

“No, it isn’t. But thank you for coming clean with me.”

Her hand still clutching his as if her life depended on keeping his in a known visible place, she cleared the tears from her face with the other. Disappointed by the hurtful discovery, she sincerely meant her words. Risking the indomitable relationship which had been forged between them through their years of association, he had disclosed a sordid detail from his past, testifying against himself in her court. At her discretion was she to pass judgment, finding herself perhaps too willing to grant pardon.

“Come here,” he softly commanded.

But much to his dismay his protégé wavered to obey yet she needed to ask the gruesome question that had crossed her mind.

“Did you murder Paul? Is that why he hasn’t written? Did you take his information and do away with him like rubbish?”

A light of hope was snuffed out of his eyes.

“No. I never touched Paul. Paul is a good man, Mary. He protected you when he was here. He was smart enough to outwit Eli and come to me. Out of his risk he earned a profit and the chance for a better life and at the same time was responsible enough to request that I take over his protection of you. I like few people and respect even fewer but Paul is one of the elite who I both like and respect. I would go so far as to say I admire him, being so young and bright. You remind me of him so much that I can’t help but to believe a strike against him is one against you. I love you too much to cause such a detriment to you.”

She stared at him, through him, for a flicker of proof that he was being honest. None of his habitual markers of dishonesty were telling on him: no severity in the eyes, no clenched jaw, no fidgeting fingers. The tension eased out of her muscles.

“Come here, my sweet,” he cozened with a gesture.

She faltered but caved when he turned his palm over, interlaced their fingers and gently tugged her toward him. Steering her around the desk, he sat her on his lap and she leaned in against him, resting her head upon his shoulder. Her free hand touched his magnificent jaw line; she liked the feel of his muscles as they worked to finish the whiskey in the glass.

“Ruth is gigantic, isn’t she?” she started as if the previous conversation never happened. “She’s passed her due date. I would’ve understood if she didn’t come but she said she wouldn’t have missed this day for the world.” There was a brief pause then out of the blue, “What’s your middle name?”

“Excuse me?” he responded, taken aback by the random and sudden switch of topic.

“The truth is my gift. I’m curious about you. Indulge me. My middle name is Evelyn.”

“Mary Evelyn Sunday. Pretty name. Suits you.”

“What’s yours now? Tell me! Don’t procrastinate!”

“Caldecot.”

“What? Pardon me?”

“My middle name. It’s Caldecot.”

Her robust laughter, fueled by the whiskey and relieved tension, rang and echoed in the room like a church bell.

“Caldecot!” she repeated, winded from laughing. Then seeing his simmering temper, “Don’t be angry with me! That will be the Christian name of my firstborn son.”

“That would be a great honor to me,” he muttered then kissed her forehead tenderly.

After several protracted minutes, he suggested, “Maybe we should go and cut that cake. H.W. is sure to have missed you by now.”

Correcting her posture, she peered straight into his vibrant emerald eyes, brightened by the flame of his harrowing assertion.

“I just have one more question,” she apprised.

“Oh? And what might that be?”

She bit back the temptation to ask her original inquiry about the whore. For fear that her petrified heart could not bear that particular truth, she quickly invented another instead.

“At the baptism, after the holy water was poured over your head. You shook Eli’s hand and muttered in his ear. He was terrified like I’ve never seen him before. What did you say to him?”

Eyes in a piercing lock, he bent forward to whisper the answer in her ear. Satisfied, she nodded then rose, helping him up afterwards and together rejoined the guests for the cake cutting ceremony.

Outside, Daniel socialized exclusively with his tight inner circle consisting of Mary, H.W., mother, Ruth, Matthew, George and Fletcher. If others approached, he made himself inaccessible with an intimidating frown that kept them moving. Mary easily read his thoughts although the others, including H.W., appeared unable to. These people revolted him; they badmouthed him and his children but were happy to come to his home, eat his food and falsely seek his fellowship and swear false fealty to their indisputable ruler. Reproachable as they were, Mary was the ideal hostess, waiting on the guests and speaking with them as if there were never any two-faced discrepancies. Tonight only were they absolved of their gossip and insinuations; that was _her_ birthday gift to _them_.

Yet the majority of her time was spent with her family and boyfriend, as Daniel made certain of; he reminded her with mild criticism that she was the guest of honor and the hired servants should be who tended to everyone’s needs. After giving him a whimsical laugh, she administered a quick kiss to his grizzled cheek before skipping off for extra cake. The party stretched on until midnight when the last of the guests straggled home and the birthday girl bid good night to her family with parting kisses and hugs.

Her energy and optimism were so depleted that the ever-attentive H.W. carried her upstairs to her bedroom in the fashion of the hero in a pulp romance and tucked her into bed with a tender kiss. The chiffon negligee was forgotten at the late hour until she noticed the white square of a box practically aglow in the darkness on her bed. H.W. had shoved it to the foot of the bed in a casual shrug of indifference. Helpless with fatigue, she didn’t change into the negligee as she had promised nor did she change out of her party dress but instead remained where H.W. put her and drifted asleep.

At one of night’s ungodly hours, her sleep was disturbed when the bedroom door creaked open. Peeping at her night caller through tired, blurry eyes, she found a dark form encroaching upon the bed. She smiled, thinking it was H.W. sneaking in to spend the remnants of her birthday night nestled beside her with her in his arms and switched positions to make room.

“Mary?” Her body lost its will to function. Her visitor was not her cloying boyfriend. “Mary, are you awake?”

“Daniel? What’s wrong? What are you doing in here?”

“I’ve come to see you in my birthday gift.”

“ _Now_?! It’s the middle of the night.”

“I asked you to wear it tonight and since it’s fit only for nocturnal use at what other time will I be able to see it on you?”

“You’re right. But I’m not wearing it.”

“Why not?”

He sounded both wounded and offended and the pang of his disappointment stung her.

“I was exhausted. H.W. tucked me in and I drifted away before even realizing it.”

“Put it on.”

“ _Now?_ ”

“Now.”

Blinking sleep from her eyes, she stared at him as if he would empathetically feel her boneless weariness and change his mind. But he was relentless in all of his pursuits and never took rejection well so he didn’t and she retrieved the box from the far corner of the bed. What Daniel Plainview wanted, Daniel Plainview always got.

“Don’t peek,” she demanded gently.

“I won’t,” he assured, turning his back to her.

Stunned and flattered by the unorthodox behavior he’d shown all day coupled with the bizarre solicitation, the young woman hurried to don the fragile garment to end any more displeasure he may have felt. Dread rained upon her when she noticed that the top half of the gown exposed her breasts and an immediate glance down showed that the frail fabric was more transparent than she’d expected. Modesty was nonexistent in this garment.

“Daniel?” He started to turn around but was stopped by her frantic shriek: “No! _Don’t_ turn around! You _can’t_ see me in this!”

“Why not?”

“It’s indecent! It bares every inch of my body!”

She wanted to say more but hit an abrupt stop. Was she hearing what she thought she was hearing? She was! Daniel was laughing at her…and he was turning around.

“That’s the idea, my sweet. Did you think I didn’t know that when I bought it? It’s supposed to celebrate your womanhood.”

“By _exploiting_ it?!” Livid, she covered the important parts of her anatomy with her arms and hands but he gently uncovered them again for review from his appreciative eyes.

“No,” he corrected, “by _accentuating_ it.”

An attempt on her part to withdraw was thwarted when he secured her in place, his leering eyes running over the whole length of her like a pagan god at a virgin sacrifice, murmuring a single word beneath his breath over and over again: “Beautiful.”

Several awkward silent minutes of tense, heavy breathing passed before he told her: “I have one last gift for you.”

“I thought your truthful answers earlier _were_ my gift,” she huffed.

“I said they were _a_ gift. I never said it was the _special_ gift I wanted to give.”

“Special gift? What else is it, then, if it isn’t this dress?”

“More truth.”

“Can’t it wait until morning?”

“It’s waited long enough. May I sit with you?”

She affirmed that he could and, as he sat on the edge of the bed with his legs over the side, she positioned herself behind him on her knees and slung her arms around him, pressing against his back. To her, it was a palliative to be hidden from his acquisitive sight. Indeterminate quiet shrouded the room but it was one shared with her Daniel, thereby one not terrible.

“I locked the door so we won’t be disturbed,” he guaranteed.

“Good idea. I’m hoping your gift is to let me sleep in your arms because I’m so sleepy…”

Reaching behind him, his arm wrapped around her waist and brought her tighter against him. In the eleven years that they’d known each other neither age nor time softened his lithe, sinuous body. Nestling close, she pleasured in the salty musk of his flesh, the stale tobacco in the threads of his clothing, the eternal underlying traces of oil that made up his chemistry. In her opinion, he smelled wondrous tonight, as if fresh from the bath. Clean hygiene was unimportant to her when it came to Daniel. His scent was always terribly masculine and tapped into a primal part of her that drove her mad.

“I need to know something.”

“Know what?” her voice, scratchy from sleep, etched out in the brief silence.

“If what you said to me during our discussion was true. Can you look passed my crime to love me?”

Disbelief roused her to straighten her posture and give him a direct and serious stare in the eye. Deep in thought, her brow furrowed and she leant over until she was as close as she could be without touching him.

“I love you so much,” she whispered, barely brushing the whorls in the shell of his ear with her lips. “Nothing will ever change that. I’m still here and here I will always be. For you.” Then, in roguish play, added, “Where’s my gift?”

Never minding possible discovery of his improper visit, he had the freedom to laugh at what he knew that she did not. Father should not be in the bedroom late at night with daughter and his son, her boyfriend, would _not_ be happy to know.

“I’ve spoiled you rotten, my sweet,” he returned. “My gift to you is your heart’s desire.”

“What does that mean?”

Preferring action over words, he gently cupped her face then moved in for a kiss. Mary’s heart revived to a maniacal thud like a bird against her ribcage and her body slackened into putty as Daniel deepened the kiss, using his tongue better than an amateur H.W. used his. Off guard, she was a quick surrender to him. An ache formed in her groin and the rest of her body tingled, suddenly awake and alive. But the wonderful amatory sensations were ruined when, in just the wrong way, his thick, bristly moustache raked against her delicate flesh. She immediately drew back, protesting.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, mistaking her response for rejection.

“No, no! I want to! Your moustache is prickly, that’s all!”

“Then that means I’ll have to kiss you elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?” she gulped.

His hand brushed back the flaxen hair from her shoulder, caressed her upper arm then brazenly cradled her breast in his palm, brushing the pad of his thumb over her diamond-hard nipple.

“This gown is comely but doesn’t compare to what it covers. Let’s rid your beautiful body of it.”

The moment disembodied her and she reacted on nothing more than pure instinct. Unable to speak, she nodded, forgetting that she’d donned the gown only minutes ago. With urgent struggling by both, Mary peeled out of the sheer negligee until she was bared for his hungry, discriminating eyes.

“Flawless,” he complimented. “Mother Nature’s best work.”

“Thank you,” she squeaked, lying back and covering her breasts and nether region as best she could with her arms again. Exposing herself to him in reality was far different than doing so in fantasy. The dusky pink of shame brushed over her body but thank heaven the darkness of the room cloaked it from him.

“Don’t do that,” he murmured, banishing her hands so that she was exhibited for him again. “Never be ashamed of your body.”

Years of moral programming compelled her to disagree: “But Dan—“

“ _Never_ , my sweet Mary.”

She nodded, speechless with expectancy.

“Have you ever gone this far with H.W.?”

“No.”

“How far have you gone?”

“Just kissing. A few nights he’s come in but all we do is hold each other.”

“Where does he kiss you?”

“On the lips.”

“Nowhere else?”

She shook her head, giggling nervously, “Where else is there to kiss?”

“When a man and a woman are in love,” he told her, “they kiss everywhere on the body. You’ve always wanted me to kiss you so tonight you get your wish.”

Her throat went dry and her pulse quickened. Hovering over her, he gently pressed his lips against hers again but did not linger there to protect her feminine skin from his coarseness. She lay as still as a corpse, heavily breathing as if struggling against a weight on her chest her proof of life. Arms pinioned at the wrists above her head by one of his large engulfing hands, she was petrified and immobile as he kissed down her neck and shoulder. The contemplation that he was drunk and so incoherent that he wouldn’t remember his actions shed real disappointment on this long-awaited event but the idea was thwarted when she realized that she neither smelled alcohol on his breath or skin. Was it possible he’d drunk in moderation in anticipation of giving this gift of experience to her tonight? She prayed the answer was yes because she did not want this elysian encounter to melt into regret come morning. The impact would be too costly upon the most sacred relationship she’d ever had with anyone.

Such thoughts evaporated when his mouth enclosed over the nipple of one of her small breasts, manipulating and toying with it in the same way he’d done with her tongue during their kiss. A throaty moan escaped her as he suckled her virgin flesh, staking his irrefutable claim on every inch of her. Equal time was spent on the second breast, she jutting her upper half forward to grant full access. Abandoning her breasts, his affections traveled lower in favor of her concave stomach clenched tighter with suspense. Laving his gentle tongue over then into the well of her navel, he inspired a ticklish laugh out of her. Then he pulled away to meaningfully gaze down at her, penetrating her with his searing, otherworldly eyes.

Those famous unearthly eyes never broke from hers even when her knees were parted, exposing her to him in the intimate way that was supposed to be reserved exclusively for a future husband. Stripped of dignity, she failed to close her legs when he forced them apart again. Her newly freed hands tried to again conceal her private parts in modest futility but he moved quickly to place them on her knees.

“When a man wants to make love to the woman he cares about, this is how he kisses her,” he told her.

Her breath expired while she intently watched him lower his head between her thighs and, though he had yet to touch her, the heat of his presence radiated against her flesh. Kissing the tender inner and uppermost muscles of her legs, he secured her hips in place but the purpose in doing so didn’t prevent her from reacting. Sibilate words were forsaken, replaced by sonorous groans of immediate rapture that had her writhing when his lips met the lips of her most intimate parts in a lewd mimicry of how he kissed her mouth. When his probing tongue stroked against that unbelievably sensitive spot she first discovered years ago on the night in the cottage, she took the Lord’s name in vain for the first time in her life. Manual pleasure by her fingers was incomparable to how he pleasured her with his tongue. The warm, wet sensation was nondescript and she responded in ways impossible to contain. A virgin’s degradation at hearing the lewd sucking sounds escalated her reticence and, in shame, she tried to draw the blanket up but he stopped her, forcing her to endure the humility and his long simmered lust. His assertiveness had her twisting and gasping in suspiring and irrepressible desire that at last was unleashed. Contorting her body and raising her hips, her back arched and fingers and heels sank into the mattress with unadulterated lust. Most of her life had been spent waiting for this but it was exponentially worth the wait! Her inexperienced thighs unintentionally closed but he was quick to separate them again, skillfully pinning them down at the knees, rendering her completely vulnerable to his hungry ministration. Panting in quick succession as her body tensed and toes spread, the mounted tension piqued; taking full advantage of deaf ears, he lapped at her until her shrieking passion rolled uninhibited through the echoing mansion and, quivering and convulsing, she begged for clemency. Even as she yanked his hair he persisted, never breaking the gratification he provided her but becoming more unremitting. When it at last ebbed away, her enervated body went rag doll limp and he rose up to survey the aftermath of what he’d done to her.

“Oh my God!” she whimpered, eyes gaping wide.

“My sweet Mary truly tastes sweet,” he declared with a ravening smile.

“I don’t think I can move after that!”

Silence claimed them as they absorbed the magnitude of what had happened, the consequences it would bring and where it would subsequently take them.

“We’ve crossed the bridge unnatural for father and daughter to cross together,” she accredited. “We are lovers now. There is no going back from it.”

“Did it make you happy?”

Her mind dizzied as he distracted her by briefly latching on to her closest nipple again.

“Beyond reason,” she breathed, trying to ignore his caress over her inner thigh.

“Good. For now, that’s the only thing that matters.”

Draping her legs over his shoulders, he set to work on her a second time, able to open her wider in her lessened coyness. Just as arduous and passionate as before, Mary muttered succinct phrases of encouragement amid moans and cries of his name. For a second or two she fleetingly recalled Eli’s story of the prostitute and couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done this very thing to her should the tale prove true. A surge of ecstatic sensation arched her back again, thwarting any other thoughts on the subject. Her body’s sensitivity was heightened from her first orgasm and Daniel’s efforts were as indefatigable in erotic labors as in his profession. Maddened with carnal euphoria, she attained a disembodiment as if her soul drifted above her body.

She imagined how she must’ve looked to angels enviously spying from above: devoid of a stitch of clothing, vacant of modesty, flat on her back, legs open wide for their fallen brethren between her quaking thighs. From wherever his soul now resided, father screamed the word whore at her; she grinned mischievously and writhed for her lover as she drew him nearer against her, moaning his name loud enough for father to clearly hear so there would be no mistaken identity.

When release came again and fatigue left her boneless and trying to recapture her breath, she realized that he intended on continuing. With exhausted, quivering muscles, she pushed back on his forehead, begging him with a raspy voice to stop because she couldn’t handle any more, a revelation that placated him. Always the domineering antagonist, it was no surprise that he was satisfied with his absolute triumph over her. He rose from the bed like a warrior surveying a land he’d recently conquered, linked with her momentously by their gazes as he moved away, back into the dark toward the door.

“Happy birthday, my sweet Mary,” he exclaimed then prudently slipped from the room.

The new evolution in her sexual awakening agitated her and she tossed restlessly for the last half of the night. But it was the happiest birthday of her life.


	12. XII. Competition

**XII. Competition**

Animals preoccupied with mating instinctually are belligerent to others around them, and the human male is no exception to the rule. Mary gloried in Daniel’s possessive animality of her at its subtle beginning despite its sudden new potency. But her allowance of it had been reckless to the consequences of letting him have her. The act they’d committed on the night of her eighteenth year of life established his undisputed ownership of her, body and soul, any relationship she had with anyone else be damned. She was familiar with this psychology from her observance of the animal kingdom both on the farm and in the wild. Unlike others, she saw it for what it truly was. Everyone on the outside ascribed his fierce protectiveness to the fact that she was now a legal adult and ripe for violation should any of the men decide to take advantage of her. H.W. wasn’t beyond teasing her about it either after he noticed the overnight change in his father.

Things were overwhelmingly awkward for Mary who was wholly inexperienced in this sort of affair. She dreaded that the dysfunctional relationship she now carried with her father figure was obvious to everyone else. Afraid that she acted differently around Daniel, she made an extra conscientious effort not to, which she believed made it glaringly obvious that there was something between them. Possessiveness notwithstanding, Daniel was well practiced in deception and handled it better. From his vantage point all was normal. That was a gift from age and experience she did not yet have but wished for now.

 _Be careful what you wish for_ , she reminded herself when she saw how Daniel scowled at Fletcher when he reviewed a batch of paperwork with her a few days later. After watching for several minutes, he interrupted out the blue and requested her to break for a walk with him. The abrupt forward rudeness dumbfounded Mary and Fletcher but the young woman obliged and left the office.

“What’s wrong, Daniel?” she inquired, worried that something might be.

“I wanted to spend time with you.”

“But I was working—“

“Do you regret what happened on your birthday?”

Mary’s face turned cherry-red and this time the broad daylight let him see it. Intrepid, she shook her head and prepared for whatever punishment he was about to dish.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll visit again tonight. Lock your door and I’ll use the master key to get in.”

Already Mary felt the ache in her lower half.

“But H.W…..”

“Tell him you’re not feeling well and retire early.”

She could only nod.

“I’ll be in around nine.”

From then on the day couldn’t darken fast enough. She did her best to keep as busy as possible, planning fatigue as the excuse to retire at eight. Usually her evenings after supper consisted of reading in the library with H.W. and discussing literature or the newspaper with him. But that night H.W. was crushed when she reported her intention of going to bed early. Giving him a loving good night peck on the lips, she resisted the temptation to ask that he join her and Daniel but she knew neither man would have it. Fifteen minutes after her bedroom door shut behind her, she heard her sweet boyfriend adjourning to his own room farther up the hall, briefly pausing outside her door before moving on. The breath she held interim escaped her lungs in a violent huff.

Daniel was punctual, entering her room by way of the mansion’s skeleton key. This time she was prepared for him, her garments discarded directly after entering the room. Kissing him in zealous welcome, she was again acutely aware that there was no trace of whiskey on his lips or breath. Flattered that he wanted this experience sober, she allowed him to sweep her into his arms and carry her to the bed.

Without prelude, he set to work igniting her with his kisses; lingering anticipation of it highly sensitized her body and he brought her off straight away. As on her birthday, his routine professional diligence shined in bed, not stopping even after she came. Gentle with slow, languorous movements, he was hard and vigorous only when she neared climax. No longer was she embarrassed by the lewd sounds of his enjoyment but instead directed and praised him, singing her own enjoyment with loud, throaty moans and high pitched shrieks. Her fingers ran through his hair, pulling him in closer as she urged him on, spreading her legs wider apart then wrapping them around him. He serviced her for several long minutes before leaning back, likely out of exhaustion.

That was when Mary realized he was still fully clothed…just like he had been on her birthday. Taking advantage of his resting state, she dove for his trousers but was instantly fended off. Sitting beside him, she flashed a look of wounded affection.

“It’s fair of me to return the favor,” she insisted.

“No, my sweet Mary,” he protested. “This is for you and only you.”

“But lovers share and reciprocate. How will I ever learn if you don’t teach me?”

“You’ll learn enough on your own. For now, be happy and enjoy what I do.”

Foiled, she compromised by kissing his hand.

“Before I came in here,” he said to her, “I received a message, delivered from a courier boy. It was from Matthew. Ruth gave birth last night.”

An excited spark jolted her with newfound energy.

“Is she well?!” she inquired. “How is the baby?!”

“Calm down, my sweet! All is well. Both Ruth and the baby are fine.”

“Thank the Lord! Niece or nephew?”

“It’s a boy.”

“A boy! Oh, Daniel! I’m an _aunt!_ ”

Throwing her arms around his neck, she planted a tender kiss on his lips, unmindful of her own scent and taste upon them.

“It was a difficult birth,” he informed. “Labor began after they departed here on your birthday and lasted for fifty-eight hours.”

“Oh no! How did they get home?”

“They didn’t. They stopped at a farm on the way.”

“Poor Ruth! All alone in a stranger’s home during a terrifying ordeal!”

“She wasn’t alone. Her husband was with her.”

“Her _husband!_ _That_ brute was the one who did it to her!”

His hand freely explored her body, her unwanted right to complain abnegated willingly in trade for physical pleasure. She wouldn’t complain any way, even as she damned Matthew for the male privilege to mate without the exorbant pain a woman is doomed to.

“She wanted it too, Mary,” he insisted. “She was fully aware what touching a man in that way could result in. She still let him do it.”

Obstinate and burning with repulsion, she pried from his hold and grumbled, “Well I won’t let _any_ man do that to _me!_ ”

He chuckled and reclaimed his property with one proprietal embrace that dragged her back against him.

“You’ve already forfeited that decision to _me_ , my sweet. You gave _me_ your body to do with as I please. I own you and you enjoy it. You love how it makes you feel. It excites you to be something owned.”

If she wanted to protest she couldn’t thanks to the surge of pleasure his lissom fingers wrought from between her legs. After a few moments of recuperation, he was at her again, freeing her mind of all spoken concerns.

At her frantic behest, H.W. drove her to the Atkins’ residence the next day so that she could visit Ruth, check on her well-being and meet her new nephew. The first thing she did was lock a bed-ridden Ruth into a fierce embrace as she interrogated her on the experience and her health. Over the duration of her older sister’s story, Mary glared at her obviously happy brother-in-law in the dimmed light of low opinion. Her nephew was brought in and introduced to her. While she cradled little Peter Thomas Atkins in her arms and talked to the pink and perfect bundle of cooing joy, she recalled with gut-wrenching horror that Daniel’s wife had died in childbirth. Her eyes located H.W. with the wrath of an avenging angel that only a female of the species could understand.

Only H.W. was as blissfully ignorant of it as Matthew was. Instead, he beamed at her in a way that he never had before: in the approving way that a man watched his love interest interact with children because he expected her to bear his someday. Unnerved by it, she hurried Peter back to Ruth’s arms.

“I almost lost you because of him,” she remarked coldly.

“But you didn’t,” reminded Ruth, “and he was worth it. Besides. You can’t blame him. He’s just an innocent baby.”

“No. I don’t blame _him_.”

Her stern gaze traveled to the men busy with written communication on a small blackboard.

The visit was cut short when Mary began to feel faint. Getting H.W.’s attention, she bid Ruth, Peter and Matthew a quick good-bye then they parted ways. For the entire ride home, H.W.’s hand affectionately grasped hers but all she thought was what she dared not say: _You killed your mother_ _and you will_ not _be the death of_ me!

Concerns of dying in childbirth didn’t deter her from intimacy with Daniel, although she resolved to never let him go further than she already had. After the second tryst, the oil man visited every other night, never letting her return the favor or do as little as divest him of his clothes. He began positioning her differently, each time performing orally with never a hint that he wanted to go further. His technique was expert, knowing precisely when, where and how to bring her body to ecstasy with his skillful tongue. Soon even the walks with him on the estate grounds or the beach ended in the same way the night visitations did: sneaking into hidden spots for their reckless activities. No satiety could be had for either of them and danger of public exposure added to her arousal. What detracted from the outside environment was her limited freedom to vocalize as much as she wanted out of the probability that a third party would stumble upon them. Stifled or not, her gratified whimpers were the sweet notes of a symphony to him.

While living under the roof of Little Boston’s most pious hypocrites, she’d often received relentless lectures and warnings that she would burn in eternal hellfire if a boy so much as looked at her. Thus it was fitting for Daniel to be the one at fault for her sexual awakening and liberation. Free from the bonds of her misogynistic upbringing, she was a new woman who reveled in the extreme opposite: a vivacious polyandrist madly in love with the two men she lived with. Now with the lenient Plainviews, she lived in an abundance of independence that permitted her to be courted by the son and take the father as a carnal slave every chance she got; she could now officially live up to Eli’s accusation of being the Plainviews’ whore. She still didn’t care.

For the sake of curious variety, she wondered if she could find someone else with which to perform the acts of reciprocation that Daniel did not allow. Her rapacious appetite for the joys of the flesh were not exclusive to Daniel but transferred to H.W. too and her adamant pursuit to coax him into acts beyond the loving kisses frustrated him. Once during their nightly reading ritual, she waited for him to initiate with a French kiss before fingers flew to his trousers. But he shied away from her, shaking his head.

 _What are you doing?_ he asked with a worried expression.

 _Don’t you want to make love to me?_ she returned.

_Yes. More than anything. But on our wedding night. I want to give myself to you on a night that means more than a whim of boredom._

Mary was stunned. _You want to marry me?_

_I’ve always wanted to marry you. But we are not yet ready._

_Why not?_

He glanced through the door left ajar to the closed one across the hall. The closed door belonged to Daniel’s office.

 _There is unfinished business I must tend to,_ he told her.

A sense of dread settling in her bones, she nodded.

 _You’re right,_ she assented. _I’m sorry. I love you so much. I just wanted to share a special experience with you._

H.W. smiled and retorted: _Every moment with you is special._

Choking back emotion, she embraced him. Nuzzling against his ear, she murmured: “I love you more than life itself. But I’ve always been in love with your father.”

Sweetly kissing his cheek, she let him lead her upstairs to the door of her room. Remorseful for the aggression, she invited him in to hold her for a while which was readily accepted with immediate forgiveness in his heart. The only thing that could rival having Daniel between her legs was being in H.W.’s arms. Comfortable and cozy were the ingredients for a soporific effect that lulled them both asleep. 

It wasn’t until after midnight when Mary’s eyes ripped open with the realization that she wasn’t alone in bed. Whether the body beside her was H.W. or Daniel, it would wreck havoc with whoever it wasn’t. Shaking the slumbering form she was relieved to discover as H.W., she frantically signed: _We fell asleep!_ _You have to leave!_

Panic shot adrenaline through his body as the pair of sweethearts rushed from the bed in a whirlwind of bed clothes and limbs. Opening the door slowly, Mary peeked out carefully to make sure the hall was clear. Finding it empty, she gestured for the young Plainview to hurry. In the doorway, he paused to give her a long kiss while locking in an embrace for a lengthy period, simply enjoying each other’s proximity before parting.

Sighing relief while exhaustion crept back into her body, she waited until H.W.’s door shut before stepping backward to retire back into her private space. But a shape out the corner of her eye magnetized her attention to Daniel who stood outside of his own bedroom door. Fully clothed and door slightly opened, he must have been turning in when her door unfastened, attracting his tired interest. Even from the distance that separated them Mary saw his resentful objection. The only thing she could do was smile in return and shut her door.

 _Why would he be mad? He knows H.W. comes in sometimes! He_ can’t _be upset because my_ boyfriend _, his own_ son _, was in my room!_

Nevertheless, fatigue abandoned her and she lay wide awake as if she was never tired in the first place.

No mention of the incident on the older man’s part put his teenage lover on pins and needles for several days before she decided that he helplessly accepted her love affair with his son. Or at least she prayed that he did. She lionized Daniel and adored H.W. and was appreciative to have them both. During the nights Daniel didn’t sneak into her bed, he holed himself up in his office drinking, making up for the sober nights spent with her. She started keeping her door locked and when questioned about it by H.W., who’d tried to sneak in one night, she provided an hortative explanation that she didn’t want to continue taking an unnecessary risk. H.W. was reasonable and agreed that she was well worth the wait but it wasn’t worth incurring the wrath of his father just to sleep in her arms.

Whether paid visit by Daniel or not, Mary seldom slept. On nights with him she squirmed beneath his tongue in unutterable bliss. On those without him two things occurred. First, she manually stimulated herself, the memories of his incredible prowess so realistic that she could almost feel him against her tormented flesh. Afterwards, as she calmed from the fevered lust, she worried for his well-being. She _hated_ it when he drank; all the horrid possibilities that could befall him while intoxicated scared her, which made seeing him the next morning a reprieve.

It also escalated his possessiveness of her, as many of the roughnecks discovered the hard way. One of them, a late twenty-something named Samuel Brunner, was in conversation with Fletcher one afternoon when he noticed her struggling with the office door while balancing a large box on her knee. Like any gentleman would, he rushed to relieve her of the cumbersome burden and hold open the door for her. He was just being polite but a bit flirtatious with a discreet wink that Mary took with a grain of salt yet Daniel viewed it another way. Noticing the wink with his keen eye, he charged forward from where he proctored at his desk to take over. The last time she witnessed that murderous appearance on his face was when he’d attacked Eli and, for a lingering moment, she feared for the worker. As Samuel left, Daniel remarked about not tainting what was his; the roughneck had no choice but to pretend he didn’t hear. Disturbed by this all day because of her knowledge about Henry’s slaying, she was put to rest only later that night when he came to her again showing the side of him nobody else was privy to seeing.

Samuel, as it turned out, was not easily bullied. On the rare occasion when she was without one of the Plainview men, he approached her with the doughty intention of conversing with her.

“Miss Mary?” he addressed. “Might I have a word with you?”

“Of course you can, Samuel.”

She led him away from the rest, hoping to steer them from any place Daniel may find them.

“You _really_ like working out here with us men?” he asked. “Or are you pretending for Mr. Daniel’s sake?”

“Why, Samuel, I thought you boys liked my presence!” she faked offence.

“We do, Miss Mary. Like a dying man in the desert rejoices in seeing a raincloud.”

“Then I’m afraid I’m unclear of what you mean to say.”

“It’s Daniel, Miss Mary. We see how he watches you. We know you’ve known him almost your whole life and whatever relationship you have with him is none of our business. But a lot of the other roughnecks have known him for longer than you’ve been alive.”

“I thought you men left gossip to women.” Her voice was even, though her body felt broken.

“We know you took to him as a daughter. But you don’t know—“

“I am very aware of his temper, if that’s what you’re driving at. I’ve seen it first hand. But he’s never been that way with me. _You_ don’t know him the way _I_ do either.”

“Of course not, Miss Mary. You might be right. I’m sure you are. I hope I didn’t step out of line and if I have, I apologize. In case I’m not wrong about him, you have me you can count on.”

“Thanks, but I have H.W. to watch out for me.”

“H.W. is his son. They are thick as thieves. Will he come to your defense against him? You can’t have too many friends.”

Mary paused to absorb this information before nodding.

“Yes, you’re right, of course. Thank you, Samuel.”

“Miss Mary, if I may be forward…”

“By all means…”

“Be it far from me to impose on another man’s territory but I’ve always been fond of you. If things don’t work out between you and H.W. then I’d be interested…”

“Thanks again, Samuel, that’s very sweet and noble of you but I think H.W. and I are synonymously inseparable.”

Samuel smiled playfully, planted a hasty kiss on her lips, then in parting told her, “I don’t see H.W. around right now.”

Since then, Mary took Samuel’s amorous play as a woman who knew she was in control and that things would never progress between them. Samuel neither came on stronger nor begrudged her for laughing off his courtship. A secret, unspoken friendship formed through brief glances, concise comments and more gallant gestures. H.W. took it lightly, even teased her about it, but Daniel was another story. There was rapid decomposition in his once tight relationship with the roughnecks. Specifically Samuel was his prime target and the careless, good natured roughneck provoked his boss as much as Eli did.

It came to be that Daniel’s vigilant eyes never left the men when Mary was near. If he was anywhere in the vicinity when she was around any of them he rushed to help her himself or kept a listening ear on anything they said to her. Some of them became aware of it and avoided her altogether, frustrating Mary to no end. What bewildered her was she expected Daniel to demand that she either be confined to the office or to fire then banish her to the mansion like the housewife he fought to keep her from being. Neither action was taken. He let her continue as if all was well, parading her around like a trophy, still showing her off as his star pupil. In meanness he flaunted her in front of Samuel, strategically wrapping an arm around her waist, taking her by the arm or interlacing their fingers to pull her close against him. Wanting to make an example out of the blazon roughneck, Daniel made sarcastic, malicious comments to the man until, having enough, the roughneck stood up to his employer directly.

“I have a _girlfriend_ , sir,” Samuel reminded with venom. “And I understand that Miss Mary is spoken for by your son, no less. She’s a grown woman and doesn’t need an old man like you fawning over her every minute of the day.”

Whether Samuel’s outburst referencing a girlfriend was true or if it was just said to call Daniel out and put the oil man in his place Mary wasn’t sure. Originally she wrote off the flirtation as harmless because she liked Samuel well enough to want to believe he was sincere. Sincerity went out the window after hearing the stunning confession that jogged her memory on the perfected deception, the falsehood that men practiced whenever they wanted something out of a woman. Perhaps Samuel was no gentleman after all. In the end it didn’t matter any way because she still had love in both of the Plainview men.

However, Daniel’s animosity seethed and Samuel was fired on the spot in an array of choice curse words and a violent removal from the fields by the irate boss himself. Over the course of one week, ten others followed in Samuel’s wake, four released in a repeat performance of Samuel’s firing while six opted for an exit before Daniel’s indiscriminate eye found fault with their interaction with Mary too.

“You’re _my_ property,” he muttered in her ear one night after ravishing her with his mouth. “Anyone else who violates you is a trespasser.”

Raw excitement made Mary shiver uncontrollably. The declaration was so primal and sexual that she couldn’t help but to respond accordingly. Heightened by his greedy hand caressing down her side, her aroused body convulsed in instantaneous release as soon as his fingers located that most sensitive spot between her legs.

One orgasmic release wasn’t enough for him and he sent her into a writhing, crying, moaning absolute hysteria. Prying his fingers off her slickened flesh, she clung to him in a feverish embrace.

“Yes, yes!” she sobbed, breathless. “I’m yours! _I’m yours!_ ”

The hand slid from between her legs, over her hip and gently groped her bare bottom. This was how she fell asleep.

There was one person, however, who could not be as easily appeased regarding Daniel’s firing rampage. In the second week after dinner on the fourth evening, H.W. decided to be diplomatic and confronted his father about his unorthodox behavior. Asking Mary to leave the room so that he might speak to his father in private, he sent her to retrieve George to do the translations on her behalf. Without argument she went. This was the men’s business she wanted no part of.

George was on the porch reading by the last light of the day and she dispatched her boyfriend’s message to the teacher. But when the dining room door shut behind H.W.’s beloved interpreter, Mary lurked outside to overhear the muffled conversation because she knew it would involve her. She was right.

“I’ve noticed the recent rash of firings and workers who have chosen to quit,” George decoded H.W.’s signing for Daniel. “There is a heavy tension between you and the men that had never been there before. Our business used to be a tight-knit family that we were all a part of: you, me and them. It worked to our advantage for many years. Family first, you always said, and it held true on every occasion.”

“What is this about, H.W.?” growled Daniel. “If you have something to say, say it. Don’t stall and draw it out like the plague.”

“You’ve always been protective of Mary and I appreciate that. She loves you so much and I know through your actions that you love her equally. But your latest measures to care for her by lashing out at the men are inadmissible. Those men weren’t trying to steal her from me or to cause her any detriment. Like we have, they’ve watched her grow up and learned to respect and love her. They would never cause her any harm.”

“Samuel Brunner—“

“Samuel Brunner was Mary’s friend. Nothing more. His courtship of her was for sport. She played along and I was aware of everything. Do you think I would ever allow harm to come to her?”

There was a pause and Mary pictured Daniel’s caustic glare drilling a hole into his son. Then his voice broke the silence in response.

“What would you have me do? Hire the men back? Beg their forgiveness?”

The patronizing tone in Daniel’s voice was conspicuous and she knew that H.W. didn’t need his ears to hear it either. They both knew the old gaffer well enough.

“No, father,” George responded as H.W.’s voice. “I know pride in your judgment defines you. But I would ask that you no longer take your fears and frustrations out on the men. If any of them disrespect Mary she is capable of putting them in their place herself. Just like you taught her to do. She is headstrong and independent, but if she needs one of us to defend her then she will have us. But I know she will also have most of our men watching out for her too.”

“You’re sure about that?” Daniel questioned, unconvinced.

“I’m positive about it.”

“Will it make _her_ happy if I let her deal with things _her_ way?”

“Without question.”

“Then I will do what you ask. For _her_ sake.”

“Thank you, father. I love you.”

“I love you too, son.”

Daniel’s voice was as cold as a January night and the iciness made Mary shiver even as she raced away.

The talk worked, for what it was worth, as Daniel alleviated his pressure on the roughnecks although his critiquing eye never withdrew from them whenever Mary was present. She smiled at him tenderly, showing him that everything was well, and it helped quell his authoritarian restlessness. Conditions with the men were never the same again but were improved as opposed to the last few weeks after Daniel curtailed his jealousy.

Then came the day when Eli returned to Little Boston and arrived at the mansion with mother for a visit. Mary knew that the lone reason Daniel didn’t monitor the appointment was because mother was there. Had he stayed in the room his reason for doing so would’ve been to intimidate Eli as a cat would toy with its rodent prey than to fend off other lions at a feast as with the roughnecks. Eli peered at her throughout the two hour visit with condescending antipathy and said very little to her. At the end of the call, mother was being helped into Eli’s brand new automobile by one of Daniel’s servants when the older brother attempted a half-hearted conversation with her.

“I’m happy that you’re happy, Mary,” he told her in a saccharine tone that would sway anyone who didn’t know better. “You’re doing quite well for yourself. Except, perhaps, from the social stance. Everyone’s noticed how eager you forsaken the church in favor of the office. That isn’t all they’ve noticed. Your unconventional relationship with a father and his son…” He stopped short, breathed deep as if to shrug off the disgrace, then changed the path of discussion. “Don’t let the town’s gossipmongers upset you. I’m sure H.W. hasn’t tainted your purity in any way and Daniel himself keeps you under lock and key to ensure it.”

The way his disgusted eyes crawled over her body felt like rape.

“I am well cared for,” she played along, aloof because she knew it infuriated him. “Thank you for your concern.”

“I hope you fare well and that you find bliss in your den of iniquity.”

“There is no evil here unless you seek it. The worst things done to me were the worst things said to me by my blood relatives. But it was nice seeing you again, Eli.”

She watched the car’s departure from the estate with an abundance of relief then went back inside to check on Daniel. Not much time or effort was required to find him; he was in his office where the bulk of his time was spent. Entering without a knock, she shut the door behind her.

“Thank you,” she said to him, “for leaving me alone in the company with my disagreeable brother. It meant a great deal to me that you allowed the right for me to face him on my own.”

“You’re an adult. I have confidence that you can handle your own matters wisely.”

Strolling towards him, she placed herself upon his knee, a chaste gesture for a father and daughter that was contorted by their real relationship, slipped her arms around his neck and cradled her head on his shoulder. His arm innately wrapped tight about her waist, he lit his pipe and deeply inhaled the cherry scented tobacco.

“I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation you had with H.W. about the men you fired,” she owned up. “Did you truly believe that they were interested in me?”

“I saw how they looked at you. I disapproved.”

“You most certainly did. But they did nothing wrong. Not even Samuel. _Especially_ not Samuel. He was so light-heartedly innocent, like a schoolboy with a crush. But I didn’t mind your jealousy. It was flattering and sexy. It verifies you want me.”

A silence blanketed them while he smoked, she imagining patterns and figures in the smoke as if she were on her back in the desert doing the same with clouds.

“I want you for myself but there are _others_ who feel the same way. I don’t share anything with rivals,” he warned, his voice dripping with envy even as he insinuated that the one he truly referred to was his own son.

”Give me the word and I’d leave him for you.”

Pressing her lips to his coarse cheek, she kissed him somberly because she knew that as selfish as Daniel was he adored H.W. and the tie he had to his son bound him to honor the young man’s first claim on her. He would voice his frustration that he couldn’t have her entirely for himself but he would continue taking what piece of her that he could when he could.

“You’ve stolen my heart, Daniel,” she proclaimed in a gentle mutter. “It should come as no surprise to you since you make a habit of taking what isn’t yours.”

The predatory look he gave enlivened her and she wondered if it was how a lioness felt in the wild during mating season when a male locked her in his sights.

“But you _are_ mine, my sweet Mary. You’ve been mine since the moment you saw me.”

“You know then, how I’ve always felt?” she questioned softly.

“You wear your heart on your sleeve,” he told her in earnest. “The only reason H.W. hasn’t figured it out is because he is blind with love for you. Anyone else can see through your transparency.”

“Is it a terrible thing, then, for _you_ to be my first love? My _only_ love?”

“Despite my _jealousy_ as you call it? My heart is envious when others have what I want, I never keep that a secret about myself.” Then he averred, “It’s _H.W._ who borrows you from _me_. And I’ll prove it again tonight.”

Wet heat throbbed in her loins and she squirmed on his lap, much to his undisguised satisfaction. Rising from his lap, she pressed her lips to his for a brief, solemn moment before departing from the office, bumping into H.W. in the hallway.

 _Speaking with the old man again?_ H.W. teased with an ignorant, genial smile.

 _About his exhaustive over protectiveness, yes_ , she replied.

 _He isn’t treating the men badly again, is he?_ queried H.W., a concerned look replacing the affable one.

The great promising businessman in H.W. shined through his irenic negotiations with his father and she smiled supportively.

_Not at all. He even allowed me to speak to Eli alone today._

H.W.’s smiled returned, relieved.

_Thank God, I was beginning to worry. For a while I thought that he was a threat to us._

_What do you mean?_ Mary’s heart sank with her feigned ignorance.

_It appeared that he was jealous not just of our defiant playboy Samuel but of all the men, as if he is your lover. I feared that perhaps he planned to issue a challenge to me for your heart._

All of Mary’s fears became realized and her blood rushed with a quickened pulse. The chemistry was so volatile between her and Daniel that H.W. needn’t to have heard her moans in the night to figure out what was going on behind closed doors underneath his nose.

 _Don’t be silly, my love_ , she misled her hapless betrothed. _He is a father to me; the touchstone for the woman I’ve become, the standard bearer for all that I consider good in a man._

_Then you do not see his faults._

_I love him despite those faults when I see the perfect son he’s produced._

The smile on H.W.’s boyishly handsome face couldn’t be wider. He asked her to join him for reading in the library but she excused herself by reasoning that meeting Eli had been taxing on her emotions and she needed to go to bed. Pecking her sweetly on the lips, he let her go and she felt immediate shame for her incestuous liaisons. Not bothering to shed any light in the salving darkness of her room, she disrobed and cried herself to sleep.

Indescribable pleasure awakened her with a moan that tore from her throat at some time in the night and her fingers found Daniel in place between her thighs. The familiar warm wetness of his mouth against her moist and receptive flesh was welcomed as he tasted her otherwise untouched feminine features. The guilt melted away like a spring rain washed away the dirt of winter. Moaning and panting his name with abandon, she cried that she loved him when she climaxed, her entire body twitching. This time rather than persisting, he positioned her on her side then slid his clothed body behind hers and settled. Contented, she pressed back against him with a sigh.

After a lengthy pause she dared to ask what she’d been wondering ever since their first night together: “Why don’t you make love to me?”

“I _am_ making love to you,” he murmured in her ear, the vibrations of his voice tickling her. Taking her leg and draping it back over his, he brought his hand down to manipulate the tiny button of aroused tissue he addictively and regularly supped on. “This is still sex.”

He secured her against him in an embrace as he gently rubbed her; she bucked her hips in wanton need, gasping in rapture.

”I realize that, Daniel. I may have been raised in a religious environment but I know what sex is. I’ve seen animals mating plenty of times on the farm. I meant I want you _inside_ me.”

Adding her hand to his, she grinded and contorted with approaching orgasm; her leg clamped tighter over his and their movements sped up to compete with her shallow breathing. With a throaty groan her body was sent into uncontrollable quivers as she met release.

”No,” he finished the conversation, his voice firm. “You will be pure on your wedding night.”

The statement did not fall on remissive ears but before she could ask what he meant by it he was again between her legs, kissing her where no father figure should’ve kissed the little girl he all but raised. Whatever reason he had to not consummate their relationship was his own as he made amends for his refusal by inserting his tongue inside her, giving her a new reason to whimper his name. When he was done she begged him to stay and hold her for the night, all previous words forgotten at the summit of her climax and her desperate new want of penetration.

To her surprise, he submitted to her wish, agreeing to stay in her room, in her bed, with her in his arms as both daughter and lover. She’d never had a more perfect sleep, not even on his first night in Little Boston or her first night in the cottage.

When the chamber maid knocked on the door to wake her for breakfast and inform her of the late hour and that H.W. was worried about her, adrenaline pulsed through her body like lightning. Replying that she’d merely overslept and would be down in a moment, she rushed to dress then waited to hear the maid’s footsteps leave the door before trying to shake Daniel from his sleep. Getting him up was impossible, as usual. He slept like the dead awaiting judgment in their graves and after trying for the better part of fifteen minutes she simply tossed a blanket over him and gave up, taking the precaution of locking the door behind her.

Of course once she arrived at the breakfast table H.W. was eager to kiss her and held her hand beneath the table while they ate. Half way through their meal, he asked her where his father was since he was still absent.

 _Probably already out on the field or in his office_ , she fabricated. _He’s always been an early riser._

With the exception of this particular day, of course; yet H.W. believed her lie because he hadn’t a reason not to. For this she felt horrible. She trusted H.W. wholly without any breach of that trust. He on the other hand had probable cause to disbelieve her lies: his father’s unfair treatment of the men, the covetous way he leered at her and scowled at even Fletcher and H.W., the way her and Daniel were always found together all made for contestation.

Perhaps H.W. had an astute grasp on her and Daniel’s mutual avarice and chose to say nothing as long as there was peace and everyone was happy. Perhaps he didn’t object to it in the least and remained sedentary so that the fey affair could run its unstoppable course. Or there was the possibility that he was anchored within his own loving trust for Daniel and lacked the insight to question either his father’s or his girlfriend’s uprightness. After all, they were the ones who he loved the most in the world and who certainly loved him in return. Why would he dispute the integrity of those not out to cause him harm?

Then he casually blind-sided her.

_I think my father has taken a lover._

_How do you know?_ She asked after a stunned pause.

_Last night I went to speak with him in his office but he was not there. Nor was he in his bedroom. I searched the whole mansion and still could not find him._

_Maybe he was out in the fields._

_No. I asked Fletcher who’d just come in after working the night shift in the field and he said father never appeared all night._

_That_ is _suspicious._

_Yes. And this isn’t the only time I’ve gone to see him and couldn’t find him._

_It isn’t?_

_No. I’m certain of it, Mary. He has a lover. I think it would be a great thing for him. He needs a woman who could tear him free of his work once in a while._

Mary smiled and nodded.

_I told him it would. Maybe he’s taken my advice._

_Which would mean an end to an era. The almighty Daniel Plainview: listening to someone else for a change._

Then her boyfriend left her alone with her fearful thoughts. How often had H.W. been unable to find Daniel when they were together? The prospector hadn’t been with her _every_ night. Was it far fetched to believe he had another woman? Could it be the same whore Eli tattled about? Since she had H.W., did she have any right to want her extracurricular lover to remain faithful to her? The assumption would be unfair to Daniel and would rank her a hypocrite like Eli.

Her ponderous wonderings spanned through the course of the work day while down at the office in the fields. Finally they took another turn as she and H.W. were going over the paperwork for a newly acquired lease when he started his customary invective about his father’s spending habits and pecuniary interests.

 _He wants to buy up the world just for the privilege to say it’s his_ , griped H.W. with a stoic shake of his head. _He purchases all this land with fierce voracity and does nothing, absolutely nothing with what he already has. I fear for his financial stability and his sanity._

_You know he’ll be fine. What else does he have in his life? You’ve grown up and he has nothing more to focus on._

_He is going to burn himself out. Rome collapsed because it did not know when to quit expanding._

_You liken your father’s business practices to the Roman Empire?_

_Isn’t it one in the same by the course of its nature? His carnivorous appetite for power has consumed everything stretching for miles. The Plainview Empire is going to implode and crush him beneath the added weight._

The squeaky springs in the door as it was opened then closed sidetracked Mary’s attention and she turned her head over her shoulder to see who was joining them. Daniel had finally arrived and she prudently squeezed H.W.’s arm to signal that his father was with them. He gave Daniel a nod of hello but the patriarch seated himself behind the desk without returning the gesture; instead he peered straight at Mary.

“I apologize for this morning,” he said, evidently without care that H.W. could read lips. “I’m a heavy sleeper, as you are well aware of.”

The girl flinched at the casual openness with which her deception was mentioned. Nevertheless she nodded and replied that it was fine, that she didn’t mind. Sensing her stiff constraint upon Daniel’s influx, H.W. motioned for her to go outside with him rather than signed to enable his father’s understanding his intent without disrespect. She exchanged a weary glance with Daniel who looked back with the interest of a proprietor surveying the leasing of what he owned.

She followed H.W. hand in hand as they walked to the beach, enshrouded in hospitable silence and away from Daniel’s monopolizing gaze. While those domineering green eyes thrilled her one minute, they frightened her equally the next. No thanks to the close call she had with him earlier she was happy to be away from him if for but an hour. Night would be a different story, but now she wanted her stolen private moments with the younger Plainview.

H.W. spread his jacket out across the sand so he could lie back and put his head on it, pulling her down into his arms. Stroking her bare arm lightly with his finger tips and nuzzling against her, he dozed fitfully only minutes later. Her head placed upon his gently rising and falling chest, Mary listened to the slow, steady drumming of his heart. Mixed with the blood pumped his undying devotion to her and she translated the beats as tantamount to a profession of love.

Was she worthy of that pure dedication after she’d disgraced him behind his back? Maybe she deserved the rapacious incubus who snuck into her room at night rather than the decent virgin she rested with now. She didn’t know precisely when her innocent standpoint mutated into its current state. There always was an underlying crush on him inside her but even then she never imagined her father figure would ever be sexually objectified. Though he came to her in the night, she initiated by expressing an interest in their carnal indiscretions and thus was a voluntary accomplice to making a cuckold out of her sweet boyfriend. It stung her like the barbs of a jellyfish to doubt herself as a person after the strict way she’d been raised. She should’ve known better; better had been instilled within her since birth. H.W. was the sort of man mother hoped she would have someday: good looking, successful, tender-hearted, and without an ounce of malice in his soul.

How ironic it was to think that in her determination to spite Eli and her father she became what she herself was against in her newfound freedom. Reflecting back on it, it didn’t seem like such a bad thing and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Daniel became a demon in those aspects and H.W. was the angel while she became fit to be the greedy oil tycoon’s successor more than his son. It was the way Daniel groomed her to be and how Eli and father had pushed her to be: a product of their joint efforts. Should she be blessed with a daughter of her own someday, she was what she hoped the girl would grow up to be.

With a start, H.W. awakened and she leaned over to kiss him the way she was taught to kiss by Daniel: fierce, passionate and hard, taking him by surprise. When he tried to sign what she was doing she blocked him then mouthed the sacred truth: _I love you_. The revelation was nothing new to him yet he was oddly surprised to hear it. Cupping her face in his hands, he kissed her deeply in a mimic of his father’s kissing method, only H.W. replenished and gave back what Daniel stole and took from her. Making love to both father and son at the same time would’ve been a fantastic experience: as one sucked the life from her lungs, the other could breathe it back into her.

H.W.’s resuscitation of her was put to an end when the night bruised the horizon. Hunger and cold ocean breezes urged them back to the office all too soon and from there they took their private car back to the mansion.

Daniel was nowhere to be found when they returned and his absence was attributed to the fields. George didn’t know where he was either, excusing his ignorance with whiling the day away writing correspondence in his room. Time furnished neither man nor answers but only stressed Mary with worry.

 _See? I told you._ H.W. stated without a visible concern. _I know it. He’s gone to visit his lover._

 _But_ I’m _his lover!_ she thought.

Forcing her troubled countenance to fake ease, she nodded.

Not until after dinner when Fletcher called did they learn what happened.

“Daniel was at work earlier today,” he told Mary. “But a courier arrived with a telegram.”

The telegram was handed to her and she skimmed it. Aghast at its content, she passed it to H.W. who read it leisurely, absorbing its contents. From a neighbor of the Atkins’ farm, the telegram relayed that they had Mary and Peter with them, that there was an incident that occurred and someone from the Plainview home was to come immediately. Daniel had gone to answer the emergency.

Mary’s most urgent reaction was to go herself but H.W. stopped her.

 _Where are you going?_ he inquired.

 _To help my sister!_ she responded, flushed and flustered.

_My father is well adept at solving problems and thinking quickly. Whatever happened, he is capable of taking care of it himself._

H.W. held her fast until her body slackened. She had no choice but to relinquish, knowing that he was right that Daniel could fix the problem, whatever it was, on his own. But having not one but two of the most important people in her life in jeopardy was all it took to give her insomnia. H.W. kept her company in her room but his presence didn’t help. While he slept, she lay wide awake, wondering what was going on and how long it would take before she was able to find out. Trying to exhaust her fired up body, she left bed to nervously pace.

Moments later the sound of the front door to the mansion downstairs suddenly closed, alerting her to the muffled voice she knew was Daniel’s and the squeal of the floorboards beneath their feet as they ascended the stairs. Mary rushed to her door, a hand on the knob and ready to open.

“You can take this room tonight,” Daniel’s voice wafted through the door. She resisted the urge to charge through and trap them in a fierce embrace. “If it’s not to your liking you can choose another tomorrow. Don’t worry about anything. You’ll be well cared for and are welcome to stay here for as long as necessary.”

“I don’t know what to say, Mr. Plainview,” Ruth replied. “Thank you.”

“That’s all I need to hear. Go on. Off to bed with you. We’ve both had a very long day.”

“Thank you again.”

“Sleep as long as you want tomorrow. Breakfast will be waiting when you wake.”

A door down the hall from her own opened then closed. Mary’s hand started to turn the knob to her own door until the sounds of Daniel’s heavy gait stopped directly outside. For an unknown reason she could not manage. She knew the worst probable scenario lay beyond the door and tonight perhaps knowing her lover and her sister were safe were enough for now. She supposed Daniel felt the same because his booted footsteps moved on, not in the direction of his own room but back down the stairwell. Likely to the refuge of the office on the bottom level.

Mary allowed herself leeway to loosen up and rejoin H.W. in the invitingly cozy bed. Instinctively when he sensed her near, he slung an arm around her. Knowing all was as well as it could be, she let herself sleep.

A note had been left on her door.

_Mary:_

_Meet me in my office as soon as you’re up._

_Daniel_

The late night had rendered the morning lark H.W. still asleep in bed, sleep easy in confidence that the situation was under control while Mary was too desperate to learn what transpired the night before to be able to sleep in.

“Your sister Ruth is here,” he told her, wasting no time.

“But why? Has something happened?”

“Her husband didn’t seem to understand his marriage vows. He forgot what the words love, honor and cherish mean.”

Mary stared at Daniel in blank disbelief, letting his words soak in.

“What has he done to her? I’ll kill him myself!”

Angry and breathless, she started for the door but he stopped her.

“There’s no need, sweet Mary. He’s been taken care of.”

Frozen in her tracks, she dared ask, “Taken care of? Like _Henry_ taken care of?”

“No. Not Henry taken care of. But he won’t be hitting your sister again.”

News that Ruth had been abused, had inadvertently followed the vicious circle that Mary had been fortunate to break, sent her running from the room with a murmured excuse in search of her sister. The logical place to look first was the bedroom she saw Daniel usher her into last night. Lightly knocking on the door, she softly called Ruth’s name. From inside came a bid to enter after her name formed as a question. When Mary opened the door she intended to run straight into Ruth’s arms but stopped short when she found her elder sister feeding her baby. Instead she first halted then sat on the bed next to her sibling.

“Daniel told me what happened,” Mary informed.

“I guessed that he would.”

“Are you hurt?”

That was when Mary realized that Ruth hadn’t looked directly at her yet. When Ruth turned to face her completely she displayed the black eye that was hidden by the turn of her head. Instantly, Mary’s eyes filled with tears as she gasped then cursed.

“You’ve gotten bold since you moved in with the Plainviews,” Ruth acknowledged. “You take the Lord’s name in vain often?”

“Every chance I get,” answered Mary with a slyness that her sister understood. “Enough of my profanities. They’re quite irrelevant at the moment, don’t you find?”

Ruth’s gaze dropped down to Peter who was clutched against her chest, cradled dearly in her arms.

“What happened, Ruth? I thought things were going well for you and Matthew. I thought you escaped.”

“So did I, Mary.”

“Well, what happened?”

Ruth offered a slight shrug. “Supper wasn’t ready fast enough. The food was over or under cooked. There wasn’t fresh milk on the table. Peter wouldn’t stop crying. Take your pick.”

Mary’s heart died in her chest when she read between the lines of her sister’s dialogue. “Ruth! No!”

“Don’t worry. Daniel showed him he meant business.”

Mary cringed. “What exactly did he do?”

A smile played across Ruth’s lips. “He didn’t even lay a hand on Matthew. He tore into the house like a terrible avenger, backed Matthew into a corner, looked him dead in the eye and that was it. He told me to take the baby and get in the car. Seeing him in such a state I knew refusal was not an option.”

“How do you know he didn’t do anything to Matthew after you went out to the car?”

“He came out right behind us. Seconds passed. Believe me, Mary, he didn’t need to do much but stare Matthew down. He meant business and Matthew knew it. He told me that I could stay for as long as I wanted. I’m telling you, Mary, I saw first hand why you called him your guardian angel for all of those years. You were right. I never saw anything more frightfully fierce and never was I so happy to see something that frightfully fierce.”

“How long do you plan on staying?”

Ruth shrugged a little. “I don’t know. For as long as it takes for things to sink into Matthew and for him to wonder if we’ll ever come back.” But she indicated the hidden question behind Mary’s words. “I’m sorry to encroach on your personal paradise. I know you’ve become a greedy little thing, keeping the Plainview men all for yourself.”

“It isn’t that, Ruth. You can see we have plenty of room here. I don’t mind in the least. I’ve thought about asking Daniel to move all of you and mother up here. There’s a whole wing of this place that we don’t even use.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“But truly, Ruth, I’m so happy that you’re here. It’s great to have a female around who I can talk to. Maybe Eli isn’t so far off when he taunts me that I’m losing all of my femininity.”

“Let me hold a conference with Daniel and H.W. and I’ll ask their opinions on that.”

The young women laughed in spite of the situation until Ruth cried in pain from her blackened and still swollen eye.

Days passed and the pair of siblings caught each other up with the latest in their lives. Even Mary’s misgivings toward her tiny nephew were vanquished within the time she’d spent with him, time in which she discovered how deep the mother was bonded to her son. They were seldom apart and once in a while H.W. would join their company. Daniel always kept a respectable distance though he eyed them in a strange way that made Mary uncomfortable.

Then she happened upon them one night. Exhausted by a visit from mother and Eli, Ruth went to her room to sleep directly after dinner. The baby was already long to bed in his cradle and Ruth was eager to join him. Daniel had refused to eat with them at the table on the grounds that there was paperwork he needed to finish but everyone knew the unspoken reason was Eli’s presence. Eli was only tolerated in the Plainview mansion for the sake of the Sunday women, after all.

En route to her room, she paused outside Ruth’s door if for nothing more than to take a quick glance at Peter. Inside the room awaited a different scenario than the one of quiet repose that she’d been expecting. Little Peter must have been asleep in the crib beside the bed because Ruth and Daniel were on the bed together; Ruth was leaning back, propped up on an elbow with Daniel leaning in and one hand hiking up her night dress. Although Ruth protested, it seemed half-hearted. Always relentless, Daniel persisted regardless.

“No, Mr Plainview! We can’t do this! You know we can’t! I’m a married woman!”

“Look at the man you’re married to.”

“Mr Plainview, _no_! Mary!”

Her heart skipped a beat when she heard her name but Mary discovered that it hadn’t been an acknowledgement of her spying presence but a declaration to remind Daniel of how she would feel if she knew of this encounter.

“What has Mary got to do with this?” grumbled Daniel, stinging Mary’s heart deeper.

“She’ll be disappointed in us!” Ruth insisted, breathless from trying to fend off his aggression. “She’ll hate us both if she found out!”

 _Not true!_ Mary thought bitterly even with tears clouding her eyes.

“Mary isn’t here,” Daniel returned. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

“ _We’ll_ know! Mr. Plainview, _we’ll_ know!” This declaration broke through to him and he withdrew. “If you feel this way about me, Mr. Plainview, I’m sorry but I don’t share those feelings.”

Mary decided she’d heard enough and slipped away back to her room. That was more than enough excitement she could bear for the night. What bothered her most when dawn broke was how much she realized the scene in Ruth’s bedroom bothered her. A less respectable version of the incident seeped into her dreams, waking her up three times only to fall back asleep and have it repeated. Ruth wouldn’t do that to her and neither would Daniel. She rejected him and he backed off.

Or was that what they wanted her to believe? Backing down was not part of Daniel’s nature. Mary knew that better than anyone. It was what kept her awake that night and gave her a ragged, worn appearance throughout the following day. She desperately wanted to find Ruth and get the dirt about what happened; she wasn’t brave enough to ask directly despite her training but instead had the plan to first wait to see if Ruth mentioned it herself but if she didn’t, Mary decided to hint and insinuate to dig for information.

Ruth arrived at breakfast with Peter but nothing could very well be accomplished because of H.W. happily munching on toast and raspberry preserves beside her. Conversation was awkward and tension permeated the room so that soon after eating Ruth asked Mary to take a walk over the estate with her, which Mary agreed to. For a while the sisters strolled in silence, each afraid to broach a subject to the other. Just when Mary could take it no longer, Ruth spoke up first. And she asked whether or not Mary and H.W. were quarrelling because of the tension at the table. The younger woman couldn’t help to laugh some of her tension away before answering in the negative.

Then she proceeded to question Ruth for details about what happened between her and Matthew, trying to figure out a way to ask what had happened in her bedroom last night. Frustrated at her inability to segue the topic, she switched her line of interrogation to how Ruth felt about Daniel’s rescue of her and the oil man in general. Her sister told her everything she asked to know except what she wanted to know. But the way she talked about Daniel wasn’t one beyond fatherly. Ruth hadn’t outright _told_ Mary that nothing happened but only hinted at it by declaring her agreement that Daniel was a venerated father figure in her opinion as well. With Daniel she planned to be much more direct. Ruth’s confession had lent her some relief, nevertheless, but as time wore on in the day the dreaded anxiety crept back upon her, mounting up worse with each moment that Daniel did not appear.

Very late in the afternoon, close to evening hours as the sun was beginning to hide and the hot fields were starting to cool, Daniel finally appeared. Saying nothing, he went directly to his office, sat down and began to work, attempting to finish up the work his late arrival caused him to fall back on as if it was dawn instead of dusk. When she dared to enter the office, he didn’t bother to look at her.

“Daniel,” she called in an urgent, quiet voice. “We need to talk.”

His eyes rolled up from the paperwork to glare at her in an unwelcome way that shocked her.

“We do?” he growled.

“About last night.

“What about last night?”

He was baiting her, she knew.

“I saw you. I saw you with Ruth.”

There was a brief, uncomfortable pause settling between them that wasn’t like any other pause before.

“It doesn’t feel good to see your lover with someone else, does it?”

His response took her aback so that she was utterly speechless. Just then H.W. chose to walk in to collect her for their ride home. Daniel glared wickedly at H.W. whose perceptiveness continued to be deficient in the situation around him. They told him to not be long then departed in H.W.’s car for the mansion. Dinner was ready because it was later than usual and this time when her beloved Plainview Junior retired to the library to read she went with him. Only this time there was no reading done; the slam of Daniel’s office door announced that the patriarch was home again and Mary nestled by the fire in H.W.’s strong arms in a desire to ward off the green eyed monster for a little while longer that night.

When they retired to their separate rooms she locked the door with the anticipation to be visited by Daniel at a later hour if for nothing but for him to get an answer to his earlier question. It wasn’t until then when she was alone with her thoughts that she reflected and felt that there was something amiss. A great change was brewing amongst them, she sensed it by the way H.W. had become clingy to her in the last few days. Not that this striving for closeness on H.W.’s part was a bad thing, but that it meant alteration and that the inevitable choice she knew she would have to make was swiftly approaching. Woman’s intuition told her and woman’s intuition was never wrong. Daniel or H.W., father or son? H.W.: the childhood playmate who’d developed into a soul mate; Daniel: the indispensable father figure who’d changed her life forever. How could she pick the one over the other? The very thought of having to decide made her ill. She didn’t _want_ to choose. She wanted them both. She was in love with them both.

Soon the worry of it was immediately dispelled as the long years of working a clockwork schedule drove the oil man to be at her door precisely when she knew he would be. Hearing the key turning the lock, she sat up to wait, but only half eager to enjoy him this time. His conduct upon entering was different than it was on other nights prior; he was cautious and hesitant in approaching her and this alarmed her greatly.

“What are you waiting for?” she at last coaxed. “Get out of the dark and come to me. My arms impatiently await you.”

“I don’t think it’s your _arms_ that await me, sweet Mary,” he rejoined with a roguish tone that made her quake as he walked toward her. “You’d rather take me elsewhere, wouldn’t you?”

Mary accepted him once again into her bed, playing the part of the passionate initiator much to his astonishment. Kissing his face and neck her fingers found purchase at the buttons of his shirt which she feverishly opened, exposing his hairy chest to her starving mouth. At first it seemed as if he would let her have her way with him but then he subdued her when she latched on to one of his nipples.

“Mary, no,” he scolded firmly. “We’ve been through this before. These visits are for you, not for me.”

“I want to do this, Daniel, please don’t stop me.”

She untucked his shirt and began to unfasten his trousers, succeeding in nearly yanking them down until he forcefully stopped her with a strong “No.”

Blinking at him through wounded eyes, she brusquely posed to him the question that had been in a corner of her mind since his initial refusal of her reciprocation: “Have you been taking advantage of me?”

Completely derailed, he at first could not speak but replaced his words with an equally wounded expression.

“Why would you ask me that?” were his words when he found them.

She shrugged and answered, “Men always tend to take advantage of gullible young girls in that way.”

“Is that what you think this is?” Silence. “Do you honestly believe that I would do that to you? To you, Mary, who I—“ His outburst tapered off and he sighed. “You are not gullible. You’re an intelligent young woman, Mary, intelligent enough to know I would never take advantage of you.” Another pause as he stared at her through the darkness. Whereas she should have been uncomfortable, her unease lessened. “Didn’t you _want_ to be my lover?”

“Yes, but—“

“We can stop at any time. I won’t force you to do something you no longer want to do.”

There was something indistinguishable in his eyes as he gazed upon her that made her lose her breath.

“I don’t want to stop. I want to be yours forever. I can’t _bear_ to lose you who are my greatest love and made me the woman I am today.”

“Who said you were going to lose me?” he questioned but she suspected he knew the answer already.

“Nobody,” she answered truthfully because it _was_ true. Nobody ever said she would lose him.

“That’s right. Nobody. You’re _mine_ , sweet Mary, and it doesn’t matter who thinks differently. If I have to mark you as mine like this every night or every time we take our walks then I will. If I have to drag you from the company of the men or from the arms of H.W. so that I can dine on your sweet cunt to prove you belong to me then I will.”

The severe crudeness with which he spoke made the heat rise in her face and her nether region ache longingly. Daniel took his time in removing her clothing, drinking in her nudity as it was revealed to him. His licentious desire reminded her of a shark about to join a feeding frenzy.

“This further confirms Eli an idiot,” he said to her. “There’s no need for his kind to go on their crusades.” Slowly penetrating her with half of his index finger, he got a squeal from her as he carefully gave her a few gentle thrusts. Then withdrawing, her licked her off of the finger and finished, “The Holy Grail is right here.”

He laid flat on his back on the bed then towed her forward, positioning her to squat down over his mouth. At first she surrendered to him, indulging him with what he wanted and moaning to show her appreciation. But it was short lived and she tried to leave him but he held her fast, keeping her in place with his strong hands on her hips until she groaned his name. Feeling more sentimental than aroused at that moment she pulled free of him, inciting a resentful curiosity within him.

“What’s wrong?” he growled.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I just want a break….”

“Don’t you enjoy what I do?”

“Are you joking? Of course I do! How could you think that I don’t? Daniel, I’m in love with you. This has brought us closer together. Why would I complain? I can’t complain at all. But I can’t say the same thing about you.”

“What do you mean, my sweet?”

“You know full well what I mean. Last night…”

“Oh, yes. Ruth. Nothing happened between Ruth and I.”

“Nothing?” He sounded sincere. He was a good liar but she was good at knowing when he was lying. And the scheme did seem like something Daniel would concoct to drive a point home.

“Nothing. I only wanted to show you what it felt when I see you with H.W.”

“How did you know I would catch you?”

“I knew. I know you well, Mary Sunday.”

“Yes, I suppose you do. Tonight I would be happier if you just held me while we slept. You can pleasure me next time. Tomorrow night, if need be. Please, Daniel. Be my father tonight and not my lover.”

Sighing in deep resignation he nodded.

“Did you speak to H.W. today?” he questioned. “Did you have a long talk after you went off walking together?”

“Not really,” she answered frankly. “We just fell asleep on the beach for a little while. That’s all. Why?”

She didn’t find it peculiar that he would ask something like that out of the blue after the feelings about the pending situation before he came to her room.

He shrugged and replied, “Just asking.” Then after another pause: “I think that maybe I should go.”

He began to rise from the bed but she grabbed his arm and yanked him back down.

“No, don’t leave! Stay with me again tonight. I love being in your arms.”

“You do, do you?”

“There is nowhere else I want to be. I feel safe and loved and wanted.”

He gave her a wicked smile and retorted, “Are you sure it isn’t because I love to eat your pu—“

“Daniel! _Don’t_ be _vulgar!_ ”

She was visibly embarrassed by the affronted way she shrank back from him. This did not deter him from drawing her back against him with a laugh, kneading her modest breasts through her nightgown as he kissed her bared shoulder. Despite the prickle of his moustache and the taste of herself on his lips, she kissed him hard on the mouth and he returned it. Making soft love sounds in her throat, she caressed his face as they separated.

“Let’s get some rest,” he suggested.

She nodded and waited for him to settle on his back again before falling into his arms.

“I see you’ve given up sleeping on the floor,” she adduced. “Do you sleep on the floor in your own room?”

“Yes, I do. But you, my dear, sweet Mary, provide me with cause to give up on many of my bad habits.”

Remembering that she hadn’t seen him drinking nor had she smelled whiskey on his breath since they began their promiscuous activities she smiled to herself.

“So it seems,” she said. “What would you do without me?”

Pushing her hair back from her rosy face he kissed her forehead with the tenderness of an apparition reflecting on what it lost in the life it once had.

“We won’t have many more of these nights together left,” he muttered distantly, rubbing her arm.

But she was too far gone into sleep to pay him mind.

After one week of asylum, Ruth healed enough to accept a cowed Matthew when he called at the mansion. Under Daniel’s unforgiving intense watch, Matthew humbly apologized and talked things out with the older Plainview girl then promised to never repeat his grievous mistake. It was unchristian of him and he was horrified by what he did. Or so he claimed. But Mary knew that was more than likely attrition forced by fear of consequences worse than what had already happened to him. She hated to see her sister pack her things, bundle up Peter and leave with her repentant husband because she felt like she was losing her best friend but she was relieved in trusting that Matthew would keep his promise. So long as Daniel, the personal guardian angel of the Sunday women, was around. Mary knew Daniel Plainview wasn’t going anywhere.


	13. XIII. The Cruelty of Love

**XIII. The Cruelty of Love**

From then on Mary noticed an unhidden rage in Daniel that exposed itself whenever H.W. was around. Like with the men, the relationship between father and son abscessed rapidly. There must have been a heated trade of words between parent and child that she was ignorant about yet whatever it was H.W. paid it no mind. She concluded that the younger Plainview had mentioned to his father the concerns he had about the business. The tacit animosity unnerved her and she grew fearful of what Daniel was capable of doing to her boyfriend. When she attempted to cajole what was wrong out of him, Daniel advised her gently to never mind and when she asked if it was because it was men’s business he assured her it was a father/son issue. She left it at that seeing how he clenched his jaw and wise in knowing that the muscle tension was a trigger for his rage to fulminate.

Four days later with no more nocturnal visits from Daniel made Mary remunerate on the cruel deception she was masked in to conceal her unruly sexual encounters from H.W. who gave no inkling of suspicion. It could’ve been because he was overly worried about the business that he couldn’t see the obvious erotic interest she had for Daniel. She loved them both deeply and denying that love for either one would be committing perjury against her heart. She always knew that there would be a day when she would have to choose between them and that day came at the end of those four days when, during a picnic on the beach, H.W. asked her to marry him.

At first she was thunderstruck and unable to speak. As she stared open-mouthed at the gorgeous engagement ring with a diamond large enough to make Eli reconsider his sexuality to possess it, she searched listlessly for words to answer. Waterfalls of tears pouring down her cheeks, she nodded acceptance then threw her arms around his neck. The young couple fell into a series of celebratory kisses and Mary wept with joy because she was positive that she made the right choice and amazed that she made it without hesitation.

 _Don’t tell father just yet,_ H.W. asked. _We should wait to tell him together. But not any time soon. He has enough on his mind. I find him to be very distracted lately. Besides, I want to preserve this secret so that I can enjoy it with you and only you for a little while._

She consented but decided one more lie wouldn’t matter. Tense life at the mansion was like living in a house of cards. One wrong move, even a slight of breath, would make it crumble down. With all of the wrong she did to H.W. behind his back, the thought of not telling Daniel that she’d accepted a marriage proposal from his son was unthinkable. It would be a delicate situation and she wondered how she should mention it to him, let alone discuss it with him.

Once taken the vows of marriage she would honor them willingly. His words from their last night together reminded her of how competitive and controlling Daniel was by nature and if that excited her before it frightened her now. His legendary temper waited to detonate beneath his collected exterior and it was to be certain when it came to this topic. The almighty Daniel Plainview who never lost anything he went after was about to lose his lover to his son.

At dinner she waited until H.W.’s attention was sidetracked and quietly informed Daniel that she wanted to see him in her bedroom later. He stared at her at length then slightly nodded, his gaze undeterred when H.W. was no longer distracted. She spent time with her secret fiancé in the library, hearing Daniel enter his office to do more work rather than to relax. Obsessed with work, it was all Daniel had now that H.W. was an adult, Eli was moved away and he was monarch of all he surveyed. She nearly fell asleep in H.W.’s arms on the sofa as he silently read a book of poetry. This relieved her when she saw the book’s title; she didn’t want him to follow in his father’s footsteps by immersing himself in constant work. Telling him that she was going to bed, she issued a tender kiss on his lips then left him alone for the night.

Once in her room she locked the door to secure her privacy until her lover arrived then dressed into her night clothes rather than stripping naked to wait for him as she usually did. Within minutes she fell asleep, wakened at nine by the jangle of the skeleton key at the lock. Heart pounding like a bass drum, she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, waiting for the door to crack then creak open and Daniel to slip in.

“You look like an angel in that white gown,” he told her as he approached the bed.

“I’ve said something similar about you,” she reminded softly.

Offering her a smile, his eyes dropped to her legs, concealed by the gown she wore. He reached down and stroked her inner thigh which she now instinctively opened to him. Groaning, she granted him access to her as she bunched up her nightgown and leaned back to remove her underwear. He knelt down on the hard floor like he did the day of his effacing inauguration into the church, only this time it was for a far more pleasing experience than to be smacked around by Eli. She propped herself up on her elbows so she could watch but the moment his tongue touched her delicate flesh she released a high pitched squeal of delight and flopped down backwards again. Her fingers tangled in and pulled at his hair, as she swore and moaned his name.

From out of the blue, a guilt-ridden image of H.W. popped into her head: his sweet and darling face moving in for a kiss that started off as an innocent peck but built up to one more fervent and desirous. But in this fantasy he could speak and the words he spoke haunted her: _I love you!_

Snapping back to her senses she realized it wasn’t H.W. between her legs but Daniel. As readily as her mind had betrayed her body with the picture of H.W., her body betrayed her mind with an orgasm that crippled her as she wiggled away from his mouth. Hooking her knees with his elbows, he grabbed hold of her hips and yanked her back down to the edge of the bed and onto his ravenous mouth again. Out of breath, her blurred thoughts were limpid enough for her to place her feet upon his shoulders and force him away. Sitting up, she arranged the bottom of her rumpled nightgown around her to cover her legs once more.

For a long time they stared at each other in separate disbelief for what she’d done, not uttering a single word. With a painful grunt he rose up enough to sit on the edge of the bed with her and watched her heaving bosom calm and body cease quaking. The plateau they’d reached was one she helplessly dangled over now and the only person who prevented her from plummeting to her death was about to release her hand and let her go.

How was she going to break this news to him? Delicately? Daniel himself never made it a point to be subtle in his plain speaking ways. Directness would be honorable to the businessman and that was how she thought it best to handle.

 _I love him and I cannot bear it!_ she hopelessly admitted to herself.

“H.W. asked me to marry him,” she stated abruptly, sparing him nothing even though she loved him. “I said yes.”

The silence that befell them was deafening and hallow. He didn’t ignite into a fit of violence or a litany of threats as she expected. He was immobile, as if concentrating on where was best to lay the killing strike on his prey. It worried her. Then he began to make sounds as if trying to form speech but gave up, sighed long and mournfully, ripping her heart asunder. After a long while she decided to speak up as it didn’t seem that he was going to.

“He means a great deal to me but I love you more than anything in the world. That hasn’t changed. I look forward to our nights together; I enjoy and savor every second of them and count the hours when you will come in here and be with me again, pleasuring me as a lover and holding me as a father. Words cannot express how profoundly I love you.”

“H.W. is a good man,” he said simply. “He is worthy of your love, your full, undivided love. You chose well.”

“I told you, Daniel, to say the word and I’ll leave him for you.”

The idea occurred to her that after her assertion of future marriage this was probably the last chance she would have to do anything with him. All thoughts of H.W. were tossed aside in this new urgency of wanting his love and intending to take it before she was unable. He was a stoic statue as she caressed his body, lean and hard from a life of strenuous labor, and slipped one button free from its hole in his shirt, then another and another until enough of his chest was exposed for her to plant tender kisses on. The coarse hair on his chest tickled her nose and she rubbed it gingerly to quell the agitation before suckling one of his nipples. This finally won her a reaction as he released a gratifying moan, inspiring her to continue more arduously.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” she asked. “I know that our nights are all about me. But not tonight. Tonight it’s about _you_. Let _me_ pleasure _you_. You deserve it.”

He did not, or could not, reply. She continued her work, unbuttoned the rest of his shirt and attempted to pull it from his torso until he prevented her. Undaunted, she strayed from his chest to his mouth; coaxing him into a heated kiss that was restrained on his end.

“Don’t deny what you feel,” she muttered in his ear. “I know you love me. I see it when you look at me. The way you touch me, the way you speak to me, guard me as your own. You love me as a daughter and you always have. Yet time has given us this deeper bond and because I’m not your daughter you love me as a woman. I know you want me as I want you. Just _give in_.”

Relinquishing his steely nature for a brief moment, he kissed her without persuasion. She delighted in how well he kissed albeit an awkward one as if he was suddenly inexperienced. How experienced _was_ he? Had it not been for H.W., Mary would’ve sworn that Daniel was a virgin. During the eleven long years she’d known him she could not recall a time when she saw him with a woman. There was Eli’s old accusation of Daniel’s fornication and womanizing during the demeaning baptism many years ago but the only proof of it came from the words of one of the town harlots and Mary doubted her credibility. She refused to suspect the integrity of the man she idolized as a father figure.

Yet the absence of women in his life was bizarre; Daniel was exceptionally attractive, cunning and uncompromisingly successful, a perfect mate for any of the women of Little Boston who wanted to escape their dreary town and impoverished lives. It was illogical that he’d never settled with one of them or ever bothered to do so little as court. Maybe he’d wanted her all along, waiting years for her to ripen into the woman he desired but could never find in anyone else. He didn’t try to find his perfect mate, he created one in her, a Victor Frankenstein building his monster…then was robbed of her by his own son. Amid these rampant considerations he suddenly separated from her and she complained.

“It won’t work, my sweet Mary,” he murmured to her.

Not comprehending his meaning, she smiled and insisted, “Why? Because you’re so much older than I am? Because we have a father/daughter relationship? Because I hero worship you? None of that mattered before, why does it now? I _know_ I’m your weakness, Daniel Plainview. Don’t deny yourself. Make love to me.”

She kissed him again, opening his mouth with her tongue. Taking his hand into hers, she moved his palm down her body to the precious area between her legs beneath her nightgown, back to where he had his head only moments ago. Her hand guided his to caress her there in a satisfying way that made her throw her head back with closed eyes and moan. The atmosphere was charged with such sexual tension that it may as well had been electricity crackling through the air. He accepted her passion for a second or two before he refrained again.

“ _No_ , Mary,” he persisted, taking her hand in his and pressing it to his dormant groin. “ _It_ won’t _work_.”

Staggered by this revelation she stopped. There was absolutely no life in his organ. Everything became clear to her at that moment. Their love was unconsummated not because he wanted to preserve her virginal integrity for H.W. or anyone else, it was because he wasn’t capable of arousal. It amazed Mary that the selfless acts of performing oral sex on her were equally selfish. Oral sex was his only means of sex and if he could’ve he would’ve taken her maidenhead as she’d begged him to so often. In his efforts he was making her his lover the only way he was able to and it warmed her heart. But another curious thing came to her mind and with a lump in her throat she posed it to him.

“ _How_ is that possible?” she wondered aloud. “That _can’t_ be right. H.W….”

“Is not my son. His real father was killed in an accident when he was a baby. I’ve always wanted to have children but my father saw to it that I had my own accident when I was a boy.” In sympathy and a surge of love, Mary squeezed his arm. “So you see, my sweet Mary, you are right to believe that I have more than fatherly love for you. If I didn’t have that love for you I would’ve never come in here to satisfy you as best as I could or to admit the thing that shames me most. Love is sacrifice, even a hardened man like me can’t argue against that. You are a fine and beautiful young woman. You should have everything you deserve. Don’t waste your time here with me because I’m unable to give it to you. You and H.W. have my blessing.”

“But I _have_ everything I deserve! I have _you!_ I want _you!_ You still make me happy! _That_ doesn’t matter to me!”

With her final sentence she gestured toward his uncooperative body part. He exhaled with force and she smelled the customary whiskey on his breath yet was accustomed enough to it that it no longer bothered her. What bothered her was that he’d drink the toxic crap before coming into her room tonight when he had not on previous nights.

“I think it would be smart if you forgot about me,” he told her. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about you. I’m not good for you in any way, Mary. And as much as you insist my impotence doesn’t matter to you in time it will. You can make your life with H.W. He’s a good boy. He’s ambitious and can take good care of you. _He_ can make you happy. _He_ can satisfy you and give you lots of children.”

“No. You showed me a world where there is more to life than an unforgiving God, a hypocrite preacher and goats, a world where a woman has the right to be more than a housewife and a baby machine. Paul opened my eyes to that and you brought me into it. I always considered it to be a utopia, something that wasn’t possible but nice to hope for. Until you.”

“H.W. will not allow you to become a mere housewife and baby machine, I can assure you of that. I raised him a better specimen of man than that and he sees how incredible you are. If he didn’t see the ambition you have then he wouldn’t have asked you to marry him.”

Mary could not believe what she was hearing as tears swelled her bright eyes.

“Daniel, I wouldn’t be wasted on you!” Mary plead her case. “I _wouldn’t_ …

Filled with compassion for the young woman, he drew her closer to him, urging her gently into his arms as she wept without shame. Cradling her with the tenderness of a father, he did his best to offer her consolation however minute it appeared.

“Don’t spoil the one selfless thing I’m trying to accomplish here, Mary,” he murmured in her ear. “Don’t make this harder than necessary. You will be fine. I know you will because I taught you to rise above adversity. You love H.W. too, I know you do. He is better suited for you. You know that as well as I do. In your heart, you know that.”

“Yes, I _do_ love him but…”

“But what, Mary? What good would I be to you? Take our H.W. and be happy that you have some resemblance of me. He isn’t from my mold but I’ve shaped him…”

Her tenacity would not cave as she clung to him; she was sacrificing one precious thing for another and it was unacceptable, intolerable. She had intended to be loyal to her future husband yet now her decision to forgo Daniel entirely was too much. With him now, in his arms and in the place where he made love to her she learned that letting the older man go was not as easy as she expected. It didn’t matter if going back on her word made her a bad person as long as she could have them both. The Plainviews taught her long ago to not care about the opinions of others.

“He could never be a substitute for _you!_ ”

“H.W. is his own man, a worthy man. Take him and honor him without regret.”

All the things that she found fault in her activities with him vanished as she stretched up and kissed him frantically, not minding the prick of his bristly moustache as she once did or the fears of his jealousies or driven nature, or the sworn oath she agreed to make with H.W. and the fantasies of his son uttering words he could only say inside those fantasies. She and Daniel were the only two people in the world and she wanted to give him everything she had, to make her affection concrete. Returning her ardent kisses with ones of his own, he grabbed her by the wrists and pinned her down on the bed, hovering above her.

“Enough, Mary, enough,” he demanded. “We can no longer do this.”

“When it comes to things I want you never taught me when to quit.”

“But you must, Mary. _You must._ Listen. Do you know why I stopped coming here to see you for the last few nights?” He waited for her to ask him. “Because I knew that H.W. was planning to propose marriage to you before he did. I overheard George translating for him to Fletcher when they were in the library one night. You had already gone to bed and I suppose even though they knew I was in my office they thought I was unconscious in a drunken stupor. But they were unaware that on the nights I came to see you not a drop of whiskey ever touched my lips. Those nights I had _other_ tastes I preferred to have on my tongue. Can you believe it? Our wickedness is what allowed me to find out and H.W. told Fletcher before he told me, his own father. He hasn’t told me yet, he doesn’t know that I know. What does that say about our relationship? He doesn’t trust me. He didn’t want to tell me because of my temper. And because he suspected that I wanted you for myself.”

“What?” The allegation was news to Mary, as she never got the impression that H.W. had any hunch of the secret love affair. “He’s never mentioned it to me.”

“I raised him well, my sweet Mary. He isn’t stupid. He knows me better than anyone else, like an extension of his own body. He knows that I am attracted to you, that I want to have you for myself. That’s why he asked you to marry him. To take you away from me.”

“No, he wouldn’t do that, Daniel. He loves you.”

“He loves me but I can’t lie to him. He sees me for what I am. You don’t and that’s the danger of keeping you near me. He’s trying to protect you.”

“You would never hurt me. I know you wouldn’t.”

“It isn’t _me_ he’s trying to save you from. It’s from yourself. You are blind to my bad habits, you love me unconditionally. It would only bring you misery. That’s how I know H.W. loves you more than even you know.”

Mary couldn’t speak but tears streaked her face and her lips quivered as emotion overwrought her. Leaning down, he gave her a long, languished kiss that worked relaxing magic on her. When he broke from her, his eyes were filled with loving remorse.

“This is where we say good-bye, my sweet Mary.”

“No. No, one more night in your arms.”

“Mary…”

“Please.”

There was a prolonged deliberation before he nodded. She moved over to give him room and he positioned himself on his back next to her. Sliding over, she snuggled against him with her ear over his soothing, steady heart.

“I’m in love with you,” she whispered in his ear. “I don’t want to give you up.”

“I know, my sweet.”

He fell asleep before she did, as she expected him to, since her thoughts of how she was going to live without him kept her awake for most of the night. When her eyes opened in the morning he was not with her. At some time in the night he’d abandoned her, which weighed heavy on her heart.

In the days that followed Daniel immersed himself so deep in his work it was as if he was trying to recapture his youthful ventures into business. He no longer took time to socialize and sequestered himself away in his office where he resumed the drinking he’d given up for her. She’d been his security blanket, a new means to unburden himself without the detriment of alcohol and now that he was stripped of her he fell back to intoxication. He became indifferent to H.W. and Mary watched with increasing disturbance how their father/son relationship decomposed significantly before her very eyes.

Usually he hid away and drank in his office choked with the smoke from tobacco and the stink of whiskey but on occasion preferred to pollute the fresh air of another room. Except for the night he became completely unhinged. As she and H.W. sat in the library after supper Mary was distressed at a scuffle that drew her attention to the door. Daniel plodded into the room with a large half empty bottle of something that resembled water but she suspected wasn’t in his hand. Taking a seat across from the sofa that she and H.W. were in, his invidious glowering at his son when he looked up from the book he was reading very unsettling. H.W. offered a worried smiled before returning to his reading.

“You dumb little bastard,” the elder man growled at his unresponsive son. “You think you’re so smart but you don’t know what I know. Try to take her away from me without the decency of even telling me.”

“Daniel!” Mary addressed sternly. “Please! Don’t do this! You’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re saying!”

“He still hasn’t mentioned his proposal to me. He adds insult to injury. He steals you away from me and doesn’t bother telling me.” Raising his voice, his eyes strayed from hers to H.W.’s face again and said, “I eat your fiancé’s cunt every night and you can’t even hear her cries of pleasure.”

“ _Daniel!!_ ”

“Do you hear that, _boy?_ Mary has the sweetest cunt I’ve ever tasted.”

Mary was so mortified that she rose from her seat, which drew H.W.’s eyes from the book as she slapped the inexorable Daniel hard across the face. H.W. was after her, prying her shaking form away from his father but Daniel was also up and, like a wounded feral animal, grabbed a bewildered H.W. by the throat and slammed him against the wall.

“Daniel! Daniel, please stop! Let him go!” Mary begged.

Her fingers were at Daniel’s hands, trying to tear them off of H.W. who struggled to breathe. The impulsive attack was over as quickly as it began and a tinge of sober awareness returned to the inconsolable prospector. Releasing H.W., he flopped back into the chair, refusing to look in their direction. Mary had never seen him more lost but her priority was H.W.’s welfare. She tended to him, making sure he was able to breathe and uninjured. Slapping H.W.’s hands from his throat, she saw with agonizing dismay the red marks where Daniel’s fingers had been.

She led H.W. from the library and into her room where they stayed barricaded that night. They slept for a few hours but were awake again before dawn broke. Packing a few necessities and changes of clothes, they made their escape from the mansion without so much as a handwritten note.

With an abundance of possibilities, a promising future before them and a controlled past of dissonance behind them, they drove south. They got as far as they could in one day then stopped at a small local small town church to ask the preacher to marry them, not willing to remain unwed one more night out of fear that should Daniel reach them he could do more damage to force them apart. It was a modest wedding for an oil heir with only the preacher and his wife as a witness, simple enough for a young man who’d come from humble beginnings despite the grandiose life he’d progressively become accustomed to. He had Mary and that was enough for him.

Later that night in the town’s best hotel room, far from extravagant but charming nevertheless, Mary forfeited to H.W. the one thing Daniel could never own: her virginity. It was awkward and hurt at first but H.W. was as tender and gentle as she trusted he would be. It was perfect, except for one thing. To her blameworthy horror when she climaxed it was Daniel’s name she called into her new husband’s deaf ear. In the night’s late hour as H.W. slept, Mary toyed with the ring on her finger and wept as she remembered her fey love with Daniel. Her ridiculous heart continued to tell her that he was the one who got away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short and sweet chapter before the grand finale! Since it's so short, I had planned to post it sooner but alas, life got very messy for me as life is wont to do at times. Hope you're all doing fun, festive stuff, even if it's low-key (thanks, covid!) Stay safe out there, everyone, and enjoy the holidays if we don't chat before Xmas. :)


	14. XIV. After the Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end, beautiful friends!

**XIV. After the Blood**

The newlyweds traveled to Mexico but it hadn’t been solely for honeymoon purposes. H.W. was a chip off the old block: after reading in the local morning newspaper that there were oil prospects south of the border, they mutually decided to take the trip down. Patience and tolerance were virtues Mary was lucky to possess. Preferring to spend the next day in bed indulging in carnal delights with her husband, she opted to smile and make the best of it. The bright side was she’d never been out of Little Boston, let alone out of the United States so everything was new and exotic to her widened eyes.

Mexico strongly resembled California in its unpeopled territory yet its arid landscape was infinitely more picturesque than her native land. It was a wonderland of promise she was eager to accept. The natives were mesmerizing, their culture fascinating and she learned a great deal from them, things that she previously only heard about from Paul during their long hours spent shepherding the flock. These were the people, Paul had once told her, who were exploited in America for cheap labor after they entered the States for a better life; she reasoned that there were bad things in Mexico but there were pros and cons to every place. From her own experience she knew that regardless of country or state, one never needed to go beyond their own front door to face certain horrors. That was why she empathized with these people and after H.W. found a lease he was interested in buying she campaigned that if they set up their own company there then the workers should be paid a fair wage as if they were in America, to compensate for the wrongs their wealthy peers committed against their immigrant workers.

 _You_ would _want that, wouldn’t you?_ H.W. asked with a smile when she pitched the proposal to him. _My Mary, wise and worldly. Of course they will receive the highest possible pay. I am_ not _my father’s son._

The words knifed Mary in the heart, for H.W. was not Daniel’s son in any way; she had decided to never tell him the father’s good intentioned secret. It was the only genuine unselfish thing Daniel Plainview had ever done and she didn’t want to ruin it for H.W. who still placed his father on a pedestal even as he pointed out his faults. He ran his burgeoning business deals with the guiding question of _What would my father do?_ which made Mary smile with admiration for his commendable doting on a man who viciously assailed him for a reason unknown to him and she loved him all the more. The incomparable love H.W. possessed for the wayward prospector despite the misgivings soothed her doubts that she married the right Plainview. She knew that Daniel would be far less forgiving if the scenario was reversed.

With life pleasant and quieted down, she sought the one elusive answer to the whereabouts of her estranged brother. So much time had passed that she debated against fear to embark on this search. Was she ready to hear the worst she could never prepare to hear? Only her unshakeable need to know drove her. If a terrible fate occurred to her brother, it was better to find out and put him to rest than to live with the drawn-out demon of the unknown. So she set to work in the library, bracing herself every day, submerged in extensive research using the periodicals. Minimal detective skills surfaced articles about the upcoming young American who struck oil in California on the outskirts of a tiny town near the Californian/Mexican border. It was her long lost Paul. Jotting down the name of the company and town, she furthered her investigation and was able to unearth an address.

Wasting no time, she rushed back to the hotel where it took her three days to handwrite a thick letter chronicling the events that had happened in Little Boston since his departure, even detailing her sexual liaisons with Daniel while she openly courted H.W. because Paul had been her best friend many years ago and would surely still hold that office after all the passed time. She relayed H.W.’s Mexican ventures and asked if he would be interested in visiting to reacquaint himself with her and to meet her husband, for despite meeting as children they were adults now and were changed into brand new people.

 _Please do not blame Daniel for anything bad that’s happened_ , she petitioned in closing. _He did as he was meant to do, what you asked him to do, and, as you see, because of him things have changed for the better. He took away all the bad things, just as you promised he would._

Every day after sending off her cordial novella she starved for a reply in the same hungry way she’d awaited her angel’s arrival that distant day more than half of her lifetime ago. H.W. looked at her in a queer manner, asking what she was waiting for; she replied nothing because she hoped for it to be a surprise.

And it was. Rather than receiving a letter there was a knock on the door one evening and when she answered her dearest brother stood on the other side. She knew without second guess that it was Paul rather than Eli because his eyes were differentiated by a lack of the smug, insensitive gleam that was always reflected in the preacher’s. Without hesitation she threw her arms around Paul and kissed his face in wild welcome and he returned her enthusiasm, sweeping her into his arms and twirling her around as if in dance.

An hour later when H.W. returned from the fields he was en garde, believing Eli had hunted them down until Mary explained that it was Eli’s twin brother Paul, the one who had sent his father and him to Little Boston. This jogged H.W.’s memory and the men too had a sweet reunion.

“You’ve taken excellent care of my Mary,” Paul told H.W. with Mary happily translating for him. “Her old age is agreeing with her.”

The young woman laughed and shoved her brother playfully, then translated H.W.’s signs: “Over the years she has been everyone’s darling. My father has always called her his sweet Mary. He loves her very much.”

The conversation waned when Daniel was mentioned because the brother and sister knew what the husband and wife did not, making it uncomfortable amongst them. It was clear even to Paul that for the hell Daniel Plainview had dragged Mary and H.W. through both of them still worshipped, loved and respected the old oil man inherently. The trio ordered dinner through room service and had a private party complete with a few bottles of tequila. The lively discussion was primarily about business: Daniel’s hostile takeover of Little Boston, his discovery of Mary’s untapped aptitude for business, the way he honed her as a successor, H.W.’s own current venture as a wildcatter, and all the minute details of Paul’s journey to wealth and achievements. In her increasingly slurred voice, Mary at last suggested that H.W. and Paul join their forces and work together, the dream pairing she’d originally set aside for Paul and Daniel. The men agreed to discuss that initiative after they were sober, perhaps during breakfast. With a light heart Mary realized that she would have her Sunday/Plainview merger between her cherished brother and a Plainview man come to fruition after all. It just wouldn’t be with Daniel.

Paul had rented out a room on the floor above the newlyweds and H.W., who wanted to excuse himself to turn in for the night, escorted his wife upstairs to that room, kissed her good night and gave Paul a gracious wave before departing, allotting brother and sister privacy to talk candidly without him.

“He’s a great man,” Paul softly told her after they entered the room. “You chose well for yourself.”

“Yes, I did, thank you. How about you? Why don’t you have a lucky woman in your life?”

“I have no time for a woman. I’m always working.”

He took off his shoes and stretched out across the bed then patted the empty space next to him, urging her to do the same. She nestled down against her brother’s warm body with a content yawn.

“Tell me, then, my stranger brother. Where have you been hiding over these years? I’ve been worried sick about you. Why haven’t you written?”

“Remember when I used to teach you about a man named Karl Marx and the socialist movement?”

“Of course. I remember everything you taught me.”

“Well, I met a socialist when I was hiring men to do my drilling. We spent many hours bonding only to discover we had like minds. My entire workforce is comprised of men he knows, other members of the socialist movement. They’d invited me to a meeting and I was enraptured by the discussion. I couldn’t describe it to you, Mary. For years I struggled and argued, reasoned and fought alongside my colleagues about these issues: fair wages, better working conditions, equality. I swore to myself that when I broke free and started my own company that my men would have all of this. I was scoffed at, called a Red and a Commie. I was told that there was no room for my beliefs in a capitalist country and my ideas would fail miserably. They warned and threatened that I’d be blacklisted like the other Commies if I didn’t shut my mouth. In turn I was miserable and alone. But at this socialist gathering there was compassion and camaraderie that I’ve never felt before anywhere else. Here I was welcomed and accepted. I was one of them. I’d finally found a place where I belonged.”

“You didn’t feel that way at home?”

“Not unless I was with you.”

“But why didn’t you let me know you were safe? I was so worried about you.”

He sighed, toying affectionately with a lock of her sunshine colored hair.

“Socialism is a dangerous game,” he explained. “There are deterrents who disagree so strongly with us that they’ve waged a literal war against us. They accuse us of being a threat to the American dream and way of life. They assault us, vandalize our property, plant moles to sabotage our work from the inside. A few months ago they raided our meeting hall in Beach City while a gathering was in session. It was _horrible_ …” His voice weakened from the memory, distant sounding, and he spoke as if he were hiding from the men he spoke of and didn’t want them to find him. “The things I’ve seen. They tore the hall apart, broke all the furniture with hatchets. They roughed up so many of us. Several comrades were hospitalized, me included. They hit me in the head with an iron pipe. Fractured my skull and put me in a coma for a few weeks. They didn’t think I was going to survive. And I was one of the lucky ones. Some of my comrades were dragged away to be lynched. God knows what was done to them or where their bodies are. Often I dream of waking up under a pile of their mutilated, dismembered bodies in a ditch. I scream for help but nobody can hear me because we’re in the middle of nowhere and I’m left for dead.” His body quaked involuntarily and violently and she clung to him in a desperate aim to offer comfort. But his recollection of the nightmare event was unfinished. “There were _children_ attending that meeting.”

“Oh no, Paul, don’t…”

“Those monsters threw them into a table where pots of boiling coffee was brewing.”

Mary couldn’t suppress an appalled gasp.

“It was horrific, Mary. They screamed and wailed as they were cooked alive, the skin sloughing off with the steaming clothing they tried to remove. The most severe victim, a poor toddler who liked to sing for us, even had chunks of raw flesh fall from her traumatized frame. You see, little one, I had no choice but to stay away. If I visited or wrote a letter, they might’ve come after you. Or mother and Ruth. I was trying to protect you.”

The thought of her precious brother injured by men who wanted him dead sickened her. Clutching him hard as if her embrace would ward off their evil, she cried: “I don’t like this, Paul! Why do you do it if it’s so dangerous?!”

“Because somebody has to.”

“How did you get that single letter through that Daniel received?”

“I took a chance while I was in the hospital. I had a day nurse who wasn’t socialist but she was a sympathizer. She helped me. I directed the letter to Daniel because if he was traced out through it I knew that nobody would go after him.” Feeling her sobbing against him, he wiped away the evidence of her fear and insisted, “Don’t worry about me, little one. I’m right here. What’s done is done. And our mutual friend has taken exceptional care of you.”

She was wile enough to know that Paul was using Daniel to steer the conversation off of him. And it worked like a charm.

“You asked him to,” she reminded.

“Yes, I did. And look what happened. You and your Electra complex.”

“What’s that?”

“The propensity of the daughter to sexually desire her father. He raised you as a daughter. You think of him as a father.”

“Lot slept with his daughters.”

“Lot was drunk. And an incestuous pervert.”

“Lucky then that I’m not Daniel’s _real_ daughter. Besides, _I_ initiated.”

“But he acted on what was already in him or he wouldn’t have touched you. The fabric of a man’s soul lies in his desires.”

“We were consenting adults. He was the best thing that happened to me. The desire was mutual. And I have H.W. now so what’s done is done.”

Stretching, she yawned and switched topics in the effortless way he did:

“Don’t let work stop you,” she cautioned. “With finding a wife, I mean. It didn’t stop H.W. and me. You just have to treat her as an equal, let her assist you with your work. Daniel saw my potential and nurtured it. He never thought I was inferior and treated me the way he treated H.W. in business matters.” She sighed long and dreamily. “Work prevented Daniel from finding his happiness. He lost so much partially because of work…buried himself in an oily grave. I feel sorry for him. And I do miss him terribly.”

“You love him still?”

“My love for him will never die. It hasn’t in spite of everything and as I speak my limitless love swells my heart to bursting.”

“But you _do_ love H.W., don’t you?”

“ _Of course_ I do! _How_ could you ask me that?”

“I don’t want you to make a mistake, Mary. Wed the second best son who is a replica of his father. The second is never as loved as the first.”

Mary was offended by Paul’s assumption.

“H.W. is _not_ a replica of Daniel. He doesn’t imitate Daniel in any way. And it isn’t a bad thing that he doesn’t.”

“There’s something in your voice that tells me differently.”

A long pause parted the siblings; he waited for her to speak and she harnessed the words to do so. She wanted to explain to Paul without coming across that she didn’t love H.W. for being his own separate person.

“I love them each for their own merits,” she affirmed.

“For every one time you mentioned H.W.’s name you must’ve mentioned Daniel five times more. I’m not the brother who delights in finding faults. I’m not saying you’re wicked, Mary. Nor am I condemning Daniel. It is possible to love two people. Nobody would be able to move on and be with others if it was impossible. It’s clear H.W. means a lot to you, your love for him radiates from your eyes whenever you mention his name or look at him. When you mention Daniel, you’re a butterfly completely transformed from the inside out. It’s easy to see he means everything to you, the dearest object of your affections.”

Indignant, she wrinkled her nose and cried, “I _love_ H.W.!”

The corners of Paul’s mouth pulled down in a frown.

“I never said you didn’t.”

“Do you think I did the right thing? In marrying H.W.? I can’t bear wondering if maybe Daniel’s life would’ve changed for the better too if…”

“If you stayed behind with a jealous raging alcoholic? Mary, my sister, my precious little one, I love you and trust that you know better. Just because you love something doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”

“But Daniel _loved_ me, Paul.”

“From everything you’ve told me I believe you: I see that there is good in him and in your relationship with him just by the way H.W. talks about him. Something decent in him had to invoke your undying love and allegiance. But Daniel wouldn’t have changed. You know he wouldn’t have. Even if his heart had nothing but love for you.”

“I know, but…”

“You know you can’t save him from himself. You did the right thing by leaving him, Mary. You don’t see it now because it’s still fresh but you will in time.”

“I can’t help how I feel.”

“Of course not. But maybe you should go back to see how _he_ feels about you now. You deserted him and married his son.”

“I didn’t _desert_ him…”

“That’s _your_ version of the story. His point of view _may_ be different.”

“Maybe our story’s not completely written.”

The sapient wisdom of her older brother lodged in her mind when Mary returned to her room and the only arms she rightfully belonged in. Paul was right; staying with Daniel would’ve been fatal in one form or another. Even so, as H.W., half asleep, accepted her into his arms, she was aware that nothing short of Daniel would lift her sick heart.

Paul stayed for a month to be at Mary’s side, calling his time a long overdue vacation to catch up with her about family and friends. When she questioned who cared for his fields in his absence he informed his very proficient right hand man Chaim Menzies, the very man who’d taken him to his first socialist meeting, Mary’s brow raised as she struggled to recall a day when Daniel had taken time off from work. There was the one day when he arrived at the cottage sickly and exhausted from a night carousing with Henry, the night she presumed he killed the wayward, unlucky man who claimed to be his brother, and she sat at his bedside to nurse him. But even on that day he was up and back to work later. He hadn’t even bothered to take H.W. to San Francisco himself but instead enlisted Fletcher to do the job, sneaking off the train with a lie, or so H.W. believably informed her years later. It was no wonder the man was driven to drink. He never took time to enjoy the simpler, finer things in life. Greed had corrupted his soul and left it stained with blood and oil. He had nothing in his private life to show for his lifelong efforts outside his mansion walls. He was alone; all he had was her and H.W. but now he didn’t have even that.

History repeats itself in different ways and once again Mary felt herself always in the company of one of her men, Paul the substitute for Daniel. She didn’t mind, she’d missed her brother. Plus being new to the country and still struggling to learn the language toughened the ability to make friends. When Paul bartered in Spanish at the market for a beaded necklace she liked she was pleasantly surprised then was shocked that she was surprised.

If Daniel had been a member of the Church of the World then Paul was a pupil of the world, taking his lessons not only from books but from life experiences. She was sure that Paul must’ve been in Mexico during his extensive hiatus from her life. He managed to get the price lowered, excusing that he made the attempt because he carried little money with him out into the towns and advised that she and H.W. to do the same.

The limitless possibilities of where he’d been crammed her mind. Far off and exotic locations around the globe, new people, different cultures, the strange tongues, bizarre food, foreign customs, all experienced by Paul first hand. From Bora Bora to Siberia, she lived vicariously through him as he showed her a treasure trove of postcards, books and letters from faraway lands. Russia was one of them, had been his most favorite place, and he could speak Russian as flawlessly as he had spoken Spanish in the market.

At night she would lie in his arms on his bed much like they used to lie in the pasture carrying out their rustic routine. Only this time instead of imagining, wishing and hoping, she listened to his personal tales of how things were in the Elsewhere they’d always dreamed of. He taught her phrases and sentences in both Spanish and Russian, telling her that the more language she learned the more proficient she would be at conducting international business and, hence, make more money with the advantage of breaking the language barrier.

Studying with him into the late hours reminded her of their fond days in the pasture. A few times she’d fallen asleep in his room and, not having the heart to wake her, he covered her and settled for the night himself. In the morning, she tried to sneak back to her own room unnoticed, the maid fouling her with a dirty look. Mary understood that the woman did not know the circumstances or that Paul was actually her estranged brother but as much as she wished the woman would hold her judgments, the ignorant disapproval reminded her of a home she strangely missed.

During the time he was with them, Paul helped H.W. with his decisions and was the newlyweds’ link to the language barrier, taking extra care that details did not get lost in the doubled translation. Ever the egalitarian, he helped H.W. develop the guidelines for a successful and fair business that centralized around the workers: reasonable wages, decent hours, good benefits…the things H.W. planned on figuring out himself. The socialist touch Paul added suited the oil prince who couldn’t stray far enough from his father’s unethical predilections.

After the leases were signed for several acres and the bottom line finalized, a letter was dispatched to George Reynolds explaining why they’d left so hastily and if he could meet them in Mexico with all expenses paid. That was the last touch. It was time for Paul to leave. He wished the young couple the best of luck, shook H.W.’s hand and kissed Mary on the cheek then was on the train back to California. It was a bittersweet parting but at least she now knew he was well and happy and going to a place that was not rotten with brutality.

Days that followed beleaguered her and she became withdrawn which H.W. mistook for losing Paul a second time in her life. In fact, it was a pining for Daniel that caused her misery but was the last thing she wanted to admit to her husband. Conjured visions of the eccentric old oil man alone and in need of human touch, _her_ touch, caused her heart to bleed and she pitied him. She pitied herself, too, for the unbearable longing. Was it selfish of her to want to be near Daniel again after so much lapsed time and she had new priorities with her husband and his business? Was it possible for her to salvage what might be irreparable? As the months crawled by her melancholy worsened and H.W. attributed her deepened sadness to this being her first time away from home. They were foreigners in a land where everything was alien: the language, culture, the race, the way of life. Longing for home was only natural.

Mary took advantage of H.W.’s theory and evaded that it was indeed because she missed her family and friends. Refuge was taken in his sympathetic arms but her heart leaped when he confessed that he too missed home and being at his father’s side.

 _We should visit him_ , she suggested hopefully. _It’s been eight months. Seasons have passed and perhaps he’s changed now that he knows we find his behavior objectionable and won’t tolerate it._

 _Your invention of him manifested out of childhood assumptions that he was an angel. I know my father very well, Mary. He is_ no _angel. If he’s changed it’s likely for the worse._

 _Don’t say that! You_ must _give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, it’s been such a long time. I want to see my family. Mexico is fantastic but I miss home._

_Paul gave you a craving for your native land, didn’t he?_

She nodded with a faint smile and a tear in her eye.

 _We’ll go back soon_ , H.W. told her. _Maybe next month. I want to write Fletcher first._

_Fletcher? Why Fletcher?_

_Scout out the territory to make sure it’s safe to move in._

Mary smiled at H.W.’s shrewdness. She kissed him sweetly, enticing him into returning them until he made love to her and she found a slice of her sought after home.

A week later H.W. received a notice from George verifying that the letter was received and by the time the response was delivered he would already be on a train to rendezvous with them. George’s advent was tantamount to having Little Boston transferred to Mexico. There was great joy in the reunion with the teacher, one as sweet as when Paul came, and Mary threw her arms around their friend in greeting. It wasn’t until they were at dinner that Mary swallowed her fears and asked the big question: “How is Daniel doing?”

George was caught off guard and gave her a queer look as if she was breaking a rule by asking after the welfare of her father-in-law. Then clearing his throat he replied, “He’s…Daniel. Last I saw him. I left soon after you did. There was no need for me to be around anymore and his drinking increased while his temperance decreased. If you thought his presence was utterly unbearable before then it’s the purest of hells now. But I suppose that is his tragedy. He can’t ward off his demons. It seems they will _never_ let him go.”

Once again deep regret plagued Mary upon hearing the news. She was a connoisseur of demons herself and they kept her awake the whole of the night while she struggled with a way to suggest to H.W. that they shouldn’t wait for Fletcher’s reply and that she wanted to visit Daniel on her own. After the older man’s violent outburst it was implausible that her husband would allow her to see him by herself, of course. H.W. was sensible and not controlling in the least but she knew here he would put his foot down because he felt his father was a threat to her safety. It was here where Mary questioned the harm in one more lie, however agonizing it was to add another thread to the web.

For the turbulent days of dealing with the problem all she had to show for it was illness from lack of sleep which panicked H.W. when she couldn’t get out of bed one morning. Rather than neglecting her for the fields as Daniel had often done with him, H.W. chose to sit by her bedside, repaying an old debt from when he first lost his hearing. Against his better judgment, the worried young husband sent for the local doctor and after several long minutes of painstaking interpretations, dysentery and diseases deriving from unsanitary conditions were ruled out and the doctor ordered her on bed rest. She insisted that it was simple overexertion and bed rest would be sufficient to get her back on her feet. The last thing she wanted to do was tell him that it was nothing more than love sickness.

When they were alone H.W. inconspicuously inquired if she was with child. Astounded by the question and the hope that gleamed in his eyes, she realized the topic of starting their own family had never arisen so it was with an excruciating shake of her head that she answered no. The disappointment was fleeting when this new dream took flight as if he was oblivious of being able to have children prior.

 _Is that something you would be interested in doing?_ he asked earnestly.

The air of his gestured words was more businesslike than ever as if he was negotiating on the price of another lease and she laughed at the implication. His complexion reddened and the insult to his ego was evident.

_If bearing my children is something you don’t welcome…_

Before he could finish she grabbed hold of his frantic hands, shook her head then touched an index finger to his lips, immediately lessening his fury.

 _I would_ love _to have your children_ , she assured. _And I cannot wait to do so. But now is not the time. We are not yet ready. We need to enjoy each other as man and wife for a while first._

With a sweet smile he nodded understanding.

 _Then what’s wrong?_ he asked, the worry rematerializing.

She shrugged and responded: _I miss home._

_You miss him greatly, don’t you?_

Startled by the directness of the question, she saw no malice in his expression and nodded.

_I bet he misses you, too. He loved you above all else. Even me._

_That isn’t true!_

_But he did. You’d grown so close over the last few years. He was a good father to you. He taught you to be the strong woman you are today, the woman I’d fallen in love with. That is why I could never blame him._

_Blame him for what?_

_For becoming your lover._

It felt as if her soul left her body upon hearing his revelation. Before she could respond with more than her troubled, gaping eyes, he continued.

_I love my father. And I love you. Both unconditionally. I always have and I always will. I did not mind sharing you with him or that you both made love so frequently._

_How did you know?_

He smiled affectionately.

_That room of yours. It smelled like you lived inside a rose garden. Deaf ears heighten other senses. My father was always rugged, tough. Very much a man. A man who smelled like roses more often than he would’ve liked._

A subtle hint was an arrow through her heart. H.W. was deaf by a freak accident, the will of God, but he was blind by choice to her tawdry love affair with his father. He’d known and still loved her any way. And that made her love him all the more.

As if acceding to her heartfelt yearning, a letter from Fletcher came in the post a few days later. His prognosis was not good, just as George had forewarned. Daniel continued to slide down the banister straight into Hell. He was damned near unapproachable by anyone other than Fletcher and his butler who was forced into acting as default caregiver in addition to his regular household chores.

 _Come to see him if you want,_ Fletcher wrote, _but don’t say you weren’t warned. A long time has passed since you both left and he is still unhappy about how things went down so don’t expect a welcome reception. I can meet you at the railroad station if you still want to risk coming. I know Mary must want to see her family. Her mother talks about her all the time and Ruth drops by once a week with her family. She has another new baby now so she’s eager to see you both. I don’t know how news of this will be received but Eli has also returned to Little Boston from his latest mission. For all of his preaching about living in humble poverty he’s prettier than a girl in his fancy suits. He asked me the same thing that you did and wondered if it would be a good idea for him to call on Daniel at the mansion. I think he wanted something he had no right to ask for so I sent him over with the lie that Daniel would be happy to see him. It’s never been a secret how much those two despise each other and I expected it would’ve set the little weasel straight to send him off to face his old adversary. I believe Daniel really has scared the living daylights out of him because nobody has seen hide or hair of him since his trip to the mansion. Write to me as soon as you can and we will make arrangements._

Mary, whose blood tie designated fear for Eli only when she witnessed Daniel’s vicious assault on him in her childhood, had the photographic details of the memory bubble back to the surface. The admission from Daniel on her eighteenth birthday that he’d murdered Henry for no other reason than his pretending to be a dead brother rustled a sick feeling in her gut when she read the portion of Fletcher’s letter stating that Eli had gone missing after visiting with the tempestuous oil man. Did Fletcher unknowingly send Eli to his demise? Certainly her dear friend and Daniel’s dearer partner had not that intent in mind by authorizing a visit.

 _He’s_ still _my brother!_ she thought wildly. _Something terrible must’ve happened! Daniel hurt Eli, I_ know _it!_

Pictures of her brother lying in the quaggy grave Daniel had threatened to bury him in so many years before would not let her rest.

 _We_ must _make our arrangements to go to Little Boston_ , she relayed to H.W. after folding the letter up. _My family will be my only cure._ _I need to see them. Even Eli._

Then she emphasized in her head: _Especially Eli!_

H.W. stroked her face, kissed her gently on the lips and nodded.

 _All right_ , he told her. _I suppose the time has come._ _I’ll write Fletcher and tell him we will return to Little Boston in a fortnight._

He kissed her forehead and left her to sink back into the luxuriant pillows and duvet with assorted visualizations of the pattering of tiny Plainview feet and of her brother rotting beneath the floorboards they ran across.

Preparation for their trip back home restored Mary’s health as she bustled about packing their things. H.W. and George ventured to the fields to sort through the ranks of men, configuring who would be in command during H.W.’s hiatus. A man named Guillermo was chosen because he was the most dedicated and interested in helping the young prospector to run the fledgling company.

Inside Mary was an agitated tornado of terror for what might’ve happened and a craving to see everyone, including the exiled miser drinking himself to death in the mansion. Perhaps she was being premature in blaming him for Eli’s vanishing act. Certainly her obnoxious brother had other enemies. She had to excuse it if for but a brief moment long enough to greet him. She didn’t care if Daniel was lying in a cesspool of his own vomit and filth; she wanted to kiss him fiercely and hold him until their bodies molded together as one. Love transcended the soils of life.

During the long homeward train ride she and H.W. held hands almost the entire way. She leaned against him and napped fitfully with her head upon his shoulder, wondering what would transpire once they were on the doorsteps of their families. When the train stopped at a midpoint station for a half hour break and H.W. went to smoke and purchase a quick bite to eat for them she stretched her legs. A pair of children streaked passed to get on board, nearly knocking her down. The mother apologized but she brushed off the incident with a mirthful, “Don’t worry about it.”

The experience provided an opportunity for her to slip back into daydreams of her own future family. A manifold of thoughts filled her as, touching her belly, she wondered what her children would be like, who they would resemble in looks and in habits. If they had H.W.’s intelligence and drive combined with her tenacity and resilience then they would not want for anything in the world. If they had Ruth’s beauty then that would double their chances and make them darlings of the Earth.

_No. Not darlings. Angels!_

One regrettable thing was that they wouldn’t have any of Daniel in them and she was convinced that part of his problem was that he was robbed of the chance at having his blood carried on through his own children. Ambition failed him in that desire. From her first-hand experience she knew he loved children and that made his inability to reproduce tragic. Yes, a biological child may have changed the course of his life but what about the child? What would a child truly fathered by him be like? In review of his character, perhaps Daniel’s impotence was nature’s way of relieving the world of his uncommon cruelty. Yet Daniel wasn’t all bad. H.W. may not have been of his flesh and blood but he was raised by the oil man and there was a time when he – and subsequently Mary herself – had been Daniel’s everything. She hoped that this reunion would be sweet for them and that Daniel’s old feelings would be moved so that their relationships could be mended.

Fletcher was waiting for them at the station and Mary nearly tripped in her swift descent from the train car and launched herself at Fletcher. Luckily her old friend quickly impeded her fall with arms wrapped around her or else she would’ve fallen face first to the ground. After his gleeful reacquaintance with her, he shook hands with H.W. and George, the Plainview scion locking him into a friendly embrace. The drive to the Sunday ranch was lively with conversation as H.W. shared with Fletcher all of his plans for a new life in Mexico with his own company and Mary excitedly rambled on about the people she’d met and the things there were to see.

Nearing the town brought an anxious feeling that crept over her body as with every mile in she wanted to exit the automobile and run on foot to the ranch, if for nothing more than old time sake. _So much for the church’s condemnation of Daniel’s work_ , she thought when she spied the great forest of derricks that had proliferated the desert like odd manmade trees. Of all the things in Mexico she’d mentioned none of them bore a remote appearance of Heaven as the dilapidated Sunday ranch house did when the car rolled over a mount and it came into sight. Set among the dusty knolls she once cursed as a child and amid scores of derricks that now defaced the property as far as the eye could see, it was a wondrous sight to behold as her time away in a foreign land made the monotony hailed as a sanctuary she was grateful for. It brought tears to her eyes and H.W., who’d chosen to sit in the rear with her, noticed and embraced her with a solacing arm. She nestled against him and in the snug safety he provided allowed her emotions to purge from her. Only the light caress of his fingers could work a soothing magic on her.

Upon hearing the car, mother stepped outside and trailing behind her were Ruth and Matthew with their children, an infant in her sister’s arms. The car barely stopped before Mary was out and in the welcoming throng of her family, openly weeping together. Better still, each and every one of them embraced H.W., mother and Ruth pecked him on the cheek.

“We’ve missed you so much!” mother exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell us you were getting married? I would’ve _loved_ to have attended the wedding. After you announced your engagement I hoped for you to be wed here with Eli performing the ceremony.”

“It was rash and unexpected,” Mary explained. “We needed it done quickly, I’m sorry, mother. There are things…”

“You must be glad to have her back, Mrs Sunday,” Fletcher interrupted gruffly for he knew well the story behind the impromptu exchange of vows. “It’s a happy day, isn’t it? Little Mary is back and with her the finest husband any woman could ask to have.”

The elopement was dropped and everyone filed into the house where Ruth and mother served a decent meal. Daniel, it seemed, ensured that her widowed mother was taken care of as she now was now the sole resident in an empty nest. One of the roughnecks regularly checked on her and if she needed anything it was provided without hesitation or question. Mary choked on sentiment for her father figure. There was good in him yet and this ignited hope. Eventual mention of Eli’s disappearance, however, was an unpleasant reminder of Daniel’s incorrigible dark side.

H.W. planned to visit Daniel the next day, declaring that he needed rest beforehand because going to deal with his father was going to be like trudging off to war. He needed to gather his strength and Mary readily agreed. He spent the entire day and night with the remnants of her family, night bringing a new predicament with sleeping arrangements. Mother insisted that she and H.W. take her bed so that they could be together as husband and wife should but the young couple refused on the grounds that it was disrespectful for a child to lay with the opposite sex in the same bed under the parents’ roof. In the end Mary and H.W. got her bed despite their protests while mother took Mary’s old bed. Ruth and her family stayed out in the shack formerly occupied by the twins.

Not one for procrastination, H.W. abolished his fear by taking George over to the mansion in the morning after breakfast and concise socializing with the family. During his absence, Mary could not constrain her anxiety and paced the floor unremittingly until mother assigned her a series of tasks to work it off. It was three o’ clock when George returned, terrifying Mary when she saw that H.W. was not at his side.

“Where is my husband?” she asked, her voice frail and strained.

“Out on the beach,” George answered, his countenance like death itself. “Waiting for you.”

As she sped to the shore as swift as any racehorse, a million thoughts crowded her mind. If H.W. was the slightest bit hurt then certainly the teacher would’ve informed her about it. A loyal person like George, who’d been with H.W. for most of the young man’s life, would not omit such an important bit of information if it was true, she was convinced, so H.W. had to at least be physically intact. With Daniel’s unpredictable nature it was difficult to say what occurred between the estranged father and son, after all.

Finding H.W. wasn’t difficult once she reached the shore. He was perched on a mammoth rock, mindlessly tossing small pebbles into the foamy ocean. She was almost afraid to approach him. Almost. A hand placed on his shoulder told him that she was there and when he turned around to meet her, her heart broke. His face was red and swollen, evidence that he’d been crying.

 _He told me that I’m not his son!_ H.W. expounded, the movements of his hands graceless in the frantic emotion. _I’m not his, Mary! After all these years! I was lied to and he ambushed me with the truth when it was most convenient for him, when he couldn’t get his way!_

Unable to say anything comforting to alleviate the terrific pain from discovery of his false existence, she simply clutched him tight as he sobbed against her. Daniel was such a bastard! She dependably kept his secret that H.W. was not his own child but that of a former employee only to have that secret implemented as a weapon against her tender hearted husband who only sought reconciliation. She seethed about the fulsome behavior; she couldn’t imagine how horrible H.W. felt in having his life turned upside down and its contents emptied like a box that had been left in the attic before.

 _Your love for him was not unrequited_ , she maintained after a while. _He adored you, you know that._

_It didn’t show today._

_He’s angry with us. Perhaps it will pass. We arrived as suddenly as we came. He doesn’t know any better but to lash out in anger._

_He implied he knew that you and I were engaged before we left and he knew where we were after we’d left. How did he find out?_

_It isn’t difficult to see when two people are in love and to assume they marry if they run off the way we did. It happens often in these parts. I’m sure your father has noticed that for as long as he’s lived here._

_He was exceptionally cruel! He’s never been that way with me before! Never!_

_Yes, I don’t question you. But he at least loved you once. It’s better that you had it for a while than not at all. He may be a self-serving monster now but there must’ve been a tremendous amount of love there for him to take you in and raise you as his own. He’s always been a covetous, self-centered man but he put that all aside for a child who he did not have any real obligation to. What’s more is he did the same thing for me on another level. He isn’t all bad, H.W., and you must cling to what you remember was good._

_I know, believe me, I_ know _! But I can’t help but to mourn what I lost in him!_

Stifled with empathy for H.W., she thought she was well aware of what they both lost in Daniel’s arbitrary indifference. She allotted H.W. as much time as he needed to regain his composure before recommending that they return to the ranch and maybe playing with her niece and nephew would lighten his downheartedness. He consented but on the condition that they walked together on the beach for a few minutes more first, for old time’s sake.

That night she lay with H.W. nestled deep into her arms, recollecting the time when she first noticed the gulf of differences between the father and the son, both physical and mental. Back when Daniel confided that H.W. was not his biological child the news that they were of no relation startled her only because of the extraordinary bond they shared, a bond that exceeded every other father/son she’d ever known. Had she been left to believe that they were of the same blood then she would’ve written off the transparent contrasts as H.W. resembling his mother, or who she would’ve mistaken for Daniel’s former wife.

The father’s misconduct toward the son, for they were undoubtedly father and son, gave her contemplation of how exceptionally lucky she was to have H.W. because with Daniel she was likely to have followed in her mother’s footsteps. Like mother, she would’ve been broken hearted, love starved and following the vicious circle with an abusive husband so like her father in many ways. Somehow, unlike most men, H.W. had not followed in his father’s footsteps but traveled down the opposite path. Was it just H.W. following his own nature since he was not related to Daniel? What if he actually had been Daniel’s true son? Would he had been his own man then or would he have eventually emerged a replica?

She couldn’t help but wonder what manner of a man his biological father had been. For the offspring’s behavior to deviate so far from that of his adoptive parent, he had to be good by nature. Who had nurtured him and the manner in which he was nurtured was all for naught. He couldn’t be taught a treachery that he innately knew was wrong. He was not at all a product of his environment. His real father must have been a good, decent man because it was evident in the son. Mary counted herself lucky and was thankful for that.

_I am not defined by the traits of my father but I must always carry their stigma._

Here he slept in her arms: H.W. Plainview, nothing like his adopted father in any aspect, unwanted by the man who raised him because he dared defy him, fragile enough to cry yet strong enough to confront the persecutor he will forever call father. Once she wished she had Daniel in his place; now she was glad he was nothing like Daniel. An adult’s eyes never see things the same way as those of a child. Old enough to see in hindsight that her childhood angel had never been quite as altruistic as she’d once envisioned, the scales of disillusion fell from her new eyes.

The torment of Daniel’s ill treatment of H.W. gnawed at her throughout the night. Even after she resolved to meet with Daniel herself she earned no respite from her upset. H.W.’s wounds were not the only things keeping her awake. So had been the fate of Eli, a louse who engorged itself on the blood from a weary host all too often and who no doubt aptly received the justice he deserved but who was her brother nevertheless and she wanted answers. If Daniel had been the last person to see Eli before his disappearance then she would persuade the information she wanted out of him. There was nothing worse than never knowing what happened to a loved one who vanished. It was better to know they were dead than to worry and wonder in a type of purgatory for the rest of your days.

Morning roused new life in H.W. who acted as if the fall-out between him and Daniel never happened. For this Mary was happy but it still did not deter her from an intended council with her jilted lover. She still aimed to set him straight about a few things and find out once and for all what happened when Eli paid him a visit.

After breakfast she walked with H.W. on the beach for an hour as a means to pacify him during her absence. She meant to go to the mansion in secret with the explanation that she needed time alone to sort through her thoughts, of which she knew H.W. would not object. With her whereabouts accounted for, she snuck down to the fields to ask Fletcher if she could borrow his car. Not one bit perplexed by her request, he readily handed over the keys then warned her to be careful.

The mansion was a short ten minute drive away and had it not been for the unhappy business occupying her mind it would’ve been an enjoyable ride. Stopping the car outside, she stared at the lavish home as if it was a slaughterhouse made ornate to distract the animals about to be butchered. The proverbial lamb going to slaughter, she took a deep breath and ventured to the door.

The butler had a strained look upon his face when he answered and Mary had no wonder as to why. Being cooped up in a mansion waiting hand and foot on the great and intolerable Daniel Plainview must’ve been, without question, depleting. He asked if she was positive she wanted to hold council with him, his appearance worsening as if she asked to be put in the front lines of war. But she confirmed her desire and was led by him to the infamous office, through a hallway littered with broken glass from a shattered window crushing beneath her feet. _What happened here?_ she wondered uneasily. If she hadn’t known that the news would’ve been broken by mother if it had happened, she would’ve mistaken the mess from being done by another earthquake. She knew that Daniel probably was responsible for it while in a drunken rage. Everything Daniel did had seismic consequences.

The door was closed and he knocked, calling, “Mr Plainview? A young lady is here to see you. Mary Plainview.”

Seizing the moment as a man would on a business venture, she didn’t wait for the reply from inside. Instead she thanked the skittish servant then cracked the door ajar herself. The butler’s disbelieving eyes widened at her boldness before he scampered away in anticipation of another infamous Daniel Plainview outburst. Mary was not discouraged; she’d come this far and this was the point of no return.

“Daniel?” she called in a pathetic attempt to not project meekness. She was convinced that, like a wild animal, Daniel could smell fear. “It’s Mary, I’m coming in.”

Widening the door, she surreptitiously stepped inside, suddenly not certain that she was doing the right thing now that she was there. It was like standing before God on the Day of Judgement and she cursed herself inwardly for feeling that way. Daniel was just a man, not anything to fear compared to God Himself. Yet the feeling would not quiet when her eyes found him behind his desk amid a fog of cigarette smoke, the undisputed solitary monarch of Little Boston brooding behind a desk like the Devil would on his throne of garbage in Hell. He was disheveled and grubby and it was clear that he hadn’t bathed in days, probably still wearing the same rumpled, stained clothing too. His skin and hair were oily, his sallow face unshaven, hands dirty as always, and an atmosphere of foulness wrapped around him. A fitting composite for a fell creature it was and her heart brimmed with compassion for him.

“It’s been such a long time, hasn’t it, my love?” she began as if she’d been there all along and their paths had just never crossed. “I’ve missed you every day I was gone.”

He glared at her with a malice she’d seen in his eyes before but which had been reserved for others yet never directed at her. For the first time, she knew what Eli must have felt like when trapped in the gaze of Daniel Plainview. She imagined that H.W. had been the recipient of that same feral gaze the day before and it made her flesh creep.

“May I sit?”

Getting no response, she took the liberty to seat herself across from him, gathered her courage and returned his wild stare with one of concern.

“H.W. told me what happened,” she stated. “But I’m not here as his ambassador to plead his case to you. I’ve come here of my own accord, unknown by anyone else, to address my personal unfinished issues with you.”

“Is that so?” he spoke at last, his voice a familiar deep growl.

“Yes. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and my time away from you has proved that true. My love for you has grown but my fear of you has risen with it. I’m ambivalent to you yet I come to you with nothing but love in my heart despite fear for my safety. Although my heart trusts you will never harm me.”

“Are you so certain of that, Mary _Plainview_?” he spat in contempt.

“Yes,” she squeaked, reduced to the little girl he’d met many years ago.

“Then tell me what you’ve come to say and leave so that I might never see you or your little bastard husband again.”

She choked with heartache.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I? Ask that boy you ran off and married if you’re not sure.”

“His name is H.W. and you loved him once. You loved _us_ once.” _Before you lost your foothold on us in our adulthood_ , she wanted to add but bit her tongue not to.

His glowering indifference disturbed her beyond measure and would remain immemorial to her for the rest of her days.

“Love is fleeting at first opportunity, isn’t it?” he said. “It withers and rots when loved ones are betrayed.”

His weakness was children and it always had been. Whereas he detested and scorned adults, he’d always been kind and protective toward the children. Perhaps this was because he saw the quality of innocence in them, untainted souls that were always splashed with blackness and sometimes blood as the children grew into adults. They became corrupt in his eyes, entities he could no longer control as they were touched and changed by the world. Perhaps this was the truth behind why he cast H.W. out of his life: he was no longer acceptable by his standards. The child was forever gone and a man with a separate identity and his own dreams was left before him. With the young man stood the little girl he loved and cared for as his own, now a woman, his former lover…now his son’s wife. They grew up as individuals apart from him and he believed it a form of disrespect. He just couldn’t comprehend that it was merely growing up and things could never possibly stay the way he wanted them. Perhaps his love for children was the way Daniel Plainview chose to cleanse the blots on his own oil-blackened soul. But they were children no more. And that was the extent of his brooding love.

“I’m sorry, Daniel,” she uttered softly, gently as if _he_ were a child. “I’m sorry you feel that way. H.W.’s love for you won’t ever leave him. But you have an unnatural drive, a hunger for power and a greed for what isn’t rightfully yours. It isn’t enough for you to own something. You always have to take it away. _That_ will never leave _you_. He knows you’re not good for him. For _us_. I wanted you so badly, to make a life with you. But, in hindsight, you didn’t want me. Not really. You wanted me because I was H.W.’s. You wanted your demons more. Now you’ll have them and you must learn to live alone with them.” She paused, wanting him to respond either in motion or words. When he remained immobile as a statue, she closed, “Besides, I don’t believe I would’ve ever made you happy.”

There was silence while she let her words soak into him.

“I heard Eli came to see you,” she presented and noticed that his muscles tensed and eyes hardened to stone. “There is a rumor that you frightened him away. Nobody has seen him since his visit here with you.” She paused to search for a telltale sign on his face but found none. “What did you do to my brother, Daniel? Did you hurt him? Did you take his life?”

The recollection of Eli often squirming like a maggot on a festering wound he created himself was clear in her mind.

“Eli was here,” was his equivocated confirmation. “And he got what he deserved.”

An involuntary shiver laddered down her spine as she recalled the words that Daniel had muttered to Eli after his fiery baptism, words he confided in her about on her eighteenth birthday.

_Gods can be buried as quickly as they’re invented, Eli._

“And what was that? Tell me.”

The malicious glint in his still verdant eyes haunted her.

“I think you know,” was his reply.

“Tell me. You know I like to hear things straight from you.”

“Eli has gone to be with his Lord. Buried with the oil he held as precious as I do, conspiring with Henry on how best to exact their vengeance on me in the afterlife.”

So this was the culmination of their legendary rivalry. The schadenfreude Eli received from Daniel’s very real suffering at last had taken its toll in an undoubtedly gruesome end. Mary choked on a sob that she could not control; the tears came freely for suffering another loss and wondering what she was to tell the rest of her family. Should she protect Daniel and hide the homicide out of love for him or should she tell the truth so her extinguished brother’s body could be properly interred in the Christian way rather than lie restlessly in his murderer’s back yard? Yet there was undeniably one reason more for her tears. All he’d been to her died in that confession and all that everyone warned him to be thrived like a fungus choking the tree it lived upon.

“You cry for _him_?” Daniel snapped testily. “What was he ever worth to you outside of the abuse I saved you from?”

“No. I’m not crying for _him_ ,” she muttered. “I’m crying for _you_.”

Her revelation stunned him, rendering him speechless for an aeon as he watched her grieve but still unable to grasp that it was his lost humanity that she grieved for. When he spoke it was to strike straight to where he knew it would finish her off.

“Don’t you think it’s time to grow up?” he asked, brusque.

His inquiry punched Mary in the stomach and she already felt tears welling.

“Excuse me?” she asked, her timidity caught up to her at last.

“You’ve fawned over me for most of your life, wanting me to give you something that I can’t give. It’s time to abandon this childish pursuit of yours and move on.”

“I never asked you for anything you couldn’t give. I told you that those things didn’t matter to me so I don’t know what you mean…”

“But you do. You do know what I mean.” He swallowed the pernicious alcoholic poison she knew was partially responsible for his new cruelty to her. An inordinate drinker, his sobriety had only been in abeyance until her absence. It broke her heart. Perhaps she’d been what kept him from it or at least from drinking to an ungodly excess. “You’re a twenty-five-year-old married woman now. Hardly a child. You don’t need a daddy any more. Looking up to me as one is immature. It was understandable when you were a child and abused by your true father but the man who was your father is long dead by now; he can’t hurt you and you don’t need to hide behind my legs for protection any more.”

Mary was stunned and hurt more than she ever thought she could. Everything she’d loved about him disintegrated like a preserved thing that, after being under an air-tight seal, rots from exposure to the air. She chose her words carefully, distrusting his confrontational inebriated conduct.

“A girl always needs her father regardless of her age, Daniel. He must continue to be the standard bearer who she follows over the duration of her life. A father must always be her protector and a comfort for when she suffers. You were that for me and meant everything to me. It’s a shame you rescind your paternal office to me. You were and are my true father.”

“I’m no more your father than I am the father of that boy you’ve run off with.”

“A father is many things, Daniel. A man doesn’t need to reproduce with his body to reproduce with his soul. You understood that once. I owe the woman I am today to your fatherly influences. Yet look what’s become of you! H.W. came here for the very reason I’ve come today. We’re both greatly concerned for you. Do not turn us away.”

“I don’t need your concern. Don’t disillusion yourself. I don’t need it and I don’t want it. You said you did not come here as an ambassador for your husband but it doesn’t look that way. Tell him that sending you here makes him a coward.”

“I came of my own free will, Daniel. I told you H.W. doesn’t know I’m here. There are matters I needed to discuss with you, besides my husband’s business, one of them being the whereabouts of my brother. Yet there are _other_ personal matters between us.”

Rising from the chair, she walked around the desk, leaned down then dared to kiss his sandpapery cheek and when she saw his submission to this intimacy she stole from him, she took the chance to crush her lips firmly, heatedly against his. Everything she had was poured into that single lingering kiss: eleven years of gratitude, adulation and pure love. Despite what he’d become or the cruel words he now uttered, he adored her and saved her from the religious Sunday men’s ecclesiastical tyranny once. Nothing changed those facts. She only wished it was in her power to return the favor by saving him from himself.

That everlasting tenderness between them dissolved the impersonal way he treated her when his arms circled around her tenderly like they frequently did in the past, enfolding her like fragile gossamer wings she was terrified would rip apart with one wrong move. Old affection pulsed within her fluttering heart and because he returned her kiss with equal passion and a hungry tongue she believed to have broken through to him. Once his hands were upon her she forgot her sweet husband, her vows to him and the binding of fidelity she promised him. All intention to stay faithful to H.W. evaporated as Daniel’s touch weakened her the way it always had. His hands played through her flaxen hair to caress her face then landed gently on her small breasts which he massaged gently. She whimpered approvingly into his mouth when he reached between her legs, determined to gain one final victory over H.W. and over her.

A great satiric twist of fate occurred to her then. Impotent he was in body but not in spirit, for oil – the great Whore of Babylon – spread her legs for him and he lay willingly between them. It did not go beyond her notice to realize that the impotent man had the biggest penis in all of California, his figurative erections standing proud for his Whore in the form of the derricks clustered throughout Isabella County.

But his passion was a broken blister that left her raw and throbbing when he unexpectedly and callously shoved her away, wiping the taste of her from his lips as if she was a bitter medicine. Steadying her balance before crashing to the floor, she gazed at him in a mixture of love, pity and agony at the pivotal moment when Daniel’s divulging his true nature to her.

“Must it come to this? Must we severe ties with you? Are we that dispensable to you? I came here of my own accord because I love you. I want you in my life. In some way I want you in my life. And in the lives of my future children…your grandchildren.”

The darkness upon his face deepened and her retaliation for the hurt he’d caused her earlier in the conversation was avenged but it wasn’t as sweet a success as she anticipated it to be.

“Take your husband and go back to Mexico. Neither one of you are anything to me. Neither of you _mean_ anything to me.”

Shaking her head, she told him, “I don’t know who you are any more.”

Their eyes locked and for one split incendiary second Mary saw a smattering of his affection for her that he did his best to hide and trod down into his inner abyss. It was gone as quickly as it had come and the unbreakable spitefulness returned.

“I am who I’ve always been,” he countervailed.

At this point her desire was just to make a clean break but breaks are seldom clean. Defying his obstinacy, she closed the gap from the few steps he’d propelled her back.

“I will _always_ love you,” she murmured in his ear, stroking his grizzled jaw line with honest tenderness. “Far deeper than you’re capable of ever returning that love. And _that_ will never leave _me_.”

Bestowing him a final kiss more out of pity than love, she took the cue of her own parting words and walked away. As she reached the door and started to exit the room, she paused for one final glance at the man she stubbornly still found beauty in amid his tragic flaws. But the monarch remained on his throne, unseated, his spirit ossified beyond measure, staring pensively out the window with a cigarette held in his fingers and an intense expression of locked-in emotion. Her heart seized when his gaze relocated and fixed on her eyes but rather than the warmth and affection from her childhood, frigid seething rage mirrored back at her. Frowning slightly, she dropped her eyes to the floor and let the door forever divide them, surrendering him to whatever fate his Pyrrhic victory fitted him with. Fate had not let her down; her own expectations had. Only the ghost of a memory was looking back at her and it was too painful for her to bear. Angels fall hard when they are only men.

I read a lot of correspondence dating from that period. Decent middle-class lives with wives and children were abandoned to pursue this elusive possibility. They were bank clerks and shipping agents and teachers. They all fled west for a sniff of cheap money. And they made it up as they went along. No one knew how to drill for oil. Initially, they scooped it out of the ground in saucepans. It was man at his most animalistic, sifting through filth to find bright, sparkly things.

\- Daniel Day-Lewis

**One Pure Thing**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was a thrilling pleasure presenting this work to you. A quick note of credit: I drew from four source materials to write this: the PTA film that likely brought you all here - obviously, the deleted scenes from that film, the original script for the film - which had scenes that were never filmed, and last but certainly not least Upton Sinclair's novel _Oil!_ upon which PTA loosely based his masterpiece film on. My version of Paul's developed character as well as his backstory of where he'd been during his absence, including the tale of the raid on the Red meeting were paraphrased and taken from _Oil!_ which I urge you to read.
> 
> If you enjoyed my work on this story, I hope that you will expand your appreciation to my other fics, even if you're not a participant in the fandom (perhaps my stories will change that. 😉) Either way, I love you and am in debt to you for your readership and support. It touched me in moments when I needed encouragement in some dark and doubting hours. I am forever humbled and grateful and wish you all the best in the upcoming and promising new year!


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